MK Kulung

June 26: In five months of 2023, a total of 404,231 foreign tourists visited Nepal. According to Nepal Tourism Board’s data, altogether 55,074 foreigners visited Nepal in January, 73,255 in February, 99,426 in March, 98,773 in April and 77,703 in May. In the six months of 2022, only 237,000 foreign tourists had visited Nepal.

According to the data, the first five months of 2023 saw a 45 percent growth in arrival of tourists compared to the corresponding period of 2022. Therefore, if foreign tourists arrive at the same rate this year, there is a possibility that the number of tourists in Nepal will increase to the mark of 1 million. Likewise, in the six months of 2022, Nepal earned foreign currency equal to Rs 25.52 billion from tourism. However, in the year 2023, the data regarding how much money they spent in a period of five months has not come out yet.

During the same period of the fiscal year 2077-078 (the year 2021), tourism contributed Rs 6.69 billion to the economy.

At the end of December 2019, not only Nepal's tourism industry, but the world's tourism industry had to suffer an unexpected shock due to Covid-19 which spread from China’s Wuhan, the capital of the South-eastern province of Hubei, and gradually took over the global. However, now that the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the end of Covid-19 as a global emergency and world tourism activities are gaining momentum.

However, if we look at the history of tourism in Nepal, it is only since 1963 that the government of Nepal has officially started keeping statistics of foreign tourists visiting Nepal. After almost 60 years since then, i.e. in 2023, the number of foreign tourists coming to Nepal is increasing, which is a very good sign.

Looking at the encouraging number of foreign tourists who visited Nepal in recent years, the government of Nepal announced that 2018 will be celebrated as the Visit Nepal Year.

But in 2018, due to various reasons, it was not possible to celebrate the Visit Nepal Year, and preparations were made to celebrate 'Visit Nepal Year-2020' again in 2020 with an ambitious plan to attract two million foreign tourists in a year. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government of Nepal postponed the 'Visit Nepal Year-2020'. Although all the preparations were completed and some programs were implemented, and the inauguration was done, it had to be postponed.

At that time, experts in the world's tourism industry estimated that it would take at least 2024/26 for the tourism industry to return to normalcy.

In the future, it seems that efforts should be made to attract as many Chinese tourists as possible to Nepal. If this can be done, the Nepali tourism industry will progress quickly.

According to the data compiled by various organizations related to world tourism, including UNWTO, Chinese tourists have consistently ranked among the highest-spending tourists in the world.

Also, based on the number of Chinese tourists, they are ranked at the top among people going on the world tour. Recently, in collaboration with the Chinese people, a dragon boat competition was organized in Pokhara.

The Chinese tourists who took part in it chartered a plane and landed in Pokhara. This has raised the prospects of Chinese tourists coming to Pokhara in the future.

In the recent past, the second largest number of tourists visiting Nepal were Chinese after the Indians. This is not the case at present, but it can be expected that Chinese tourists will increase. For them, Pokhara is the most attractive tourist destination in Nepal. That's why they seem eager to come to Pokhara.

It seems that various tourist infrastructures built there have also attracted Chinese tourists. Nepali businessmen should take the initiative to bring Chinese tourists to Nepal through chartered flights. If this can be done, it seems that Nepal's tourism will be completely revived. However, their expenses seem to depend on the activities conducted here.