South Asian Business news and information

Nepal is home to the top seven highest mountains of the world. Not only mountains, the country has a very diverse landscape and very rich in flora and fauna. The country’s natural beauty and the mountains attract thousands of people from different countries around the world. Finally, democracy has been established and the long going war between the Maoists and government has stopped last year. Hence, the tourism industry of Nepal was expecting a large influx of tourists. However, the reality was quite different. I am quoting from the report published in kantipuronline.com:

On the back of its growing economy and strong emergence of its middle class, India has been generating around seven million outbound tourists annually, while 31 million Chinese enjoy foreign tours every year.

Of this astounding figure, Nepal attracted just 6,000 Chinese tourists and 95,000 Indians in 2006. The overall tourist arrivals grew only marginally by 0.4 percent in December to 26,462, falling far short of earlier expectations.

All this justifies that conflict alone is not the stumbling block to tourism growth and a string of obstacles continue to cripple the industry.

Despite having cheaper hotel fair than India, Nepal is not getting many tourists. Tourist officials pointed out different reasons behind such poor result. According to Yogendra Shakya, former president of Hotel Association of Nepal, Nepal’s tourism industry should remove their focus on niche marketing. Till now, the tourism industry was focusing on adventure tourism. He said that global tourists now days, prefer man made products instead of natural beauties.

Dubai has been able to turn itself into a major tourist hub through various man made products like amusement parks, shopping malls and so on. Nepal can also go for such products but I think focusing on natural tourism makes the country stand out among various tourist destinations around the world. I believe Nepal should go for better marketing strategies and develop its management and logistics to give better service to the tourists. What do you think?

Related article:

Kantipuronline.com