The won't just come

Nepal’s tourism story, much like several other stories, is the ‘what could have been’ story. Endowed with some of the world’s highest mountains and its most beautiful landscapes, Nepal also presents visitors with a heady mix of different cultures, beliefs and traditions. But they need to be drawn to Nepal.

However, the performance of the tourism sector in Nepal has been patchy at best. Tourism numbers have increased, but only gradually and the sector’s relative importance to the economy has stagnated over the years. While it still remains one of the mainstays of Nepal’s economy, its contribution to the economy has not been nearly enough.  

Tourism is the largest source of foreign exchange in the country, following money sent back home in the form of remittances. In 2012, Nepal saw almost 600,000 tourists, a 10 percent increase over the previous here. Most tourists into Nepal last year were from India, China, the US, Japan, the UK and Australia. However, if one were to look back at 1999, the number of tourist arrivals stood at 421,000. This means that the number of tourist arrivals into Nepal has increased by about an average of 3 percent per annum – hardly the kind of growth that can make Nepal a major tourism destination.  

For a country which considers tourism a key pillar of its economy, very little has actually been done to promote the tourism industry in the country. Customary ad-campaigns have been launched and certain days of year have been commemorated in support of tourism, but actively and on the ground, much remains undone.  

This is unfortunate because the sector provides employment to three quarters of a million people throughout the year and it provides revenues of $370 million per annum as of 2012, showing its significance to the country. Perhaps more importantly, the secondary impact of increased tourism activity on domestic economic activity is immense too, and cannot quite be quantified.  

One of the key reasons Nepal suffers from poor tourism performance is poor air connectivity between Kathmandu and the rest of the world. This means it is tough to get to Kathmandu from most cities around the world, and it is extremely expensive to travel in too. The lack of sufficient flights has meant that the few routes that are currently plied have excess traffic and very high fares. The Nepalese government has to proactively encourage the national carrier to improve its services and enable an increase in the number of destinations it can fly to through the purchase or lease of additional aircraft.

One of the ways to improve air services in the country is to encourage foreign participation and investment in the country’s airports and national airline. Today, the services of both are well below par and not indicative of a country that is taking itself seriously. Most tourists enter Nepal from Tribhuvan International Airport – an experience usually so bad it is best forgotten. Greater foreign investment into the sector will invariably bring along with it better services and a better experience for tourists. Nepal also needs to improve road infrastructure. Most of the movement domestically is by road, and the poor state of the network or its complete absence prevent tourists from getting to some of the country’s most beautiful areas.  

Tourism infrastructure in Nepal requires much greater spending by the government and the private sector if Nepal is to meet its goal of receiving two million tourists a year by 2020. It is an admirable goal, but not much has been done thus far in achieving it.  

(This was a column published in The Himalayan Times on 21 July 2013)