Ramhari Silwal
Tourism sector is a highly emerging sector in the world which plays a significant role in promoting socio-economic and cultural development of a nation. It is one of the main sectors of spreading name and glory of the nation in the world. Nepal, as an exquisite country in terms of geographical and cultural diversity, it has high prospects in tourism.
However, some appalling reasons, such as continuous violation, political conflicts and civil war which occurred in Nepal almost for a decade, have disseminated a negative message about Nepal in the world. Many countries have restricted their citizens to visit Nepal showing insecurity as the main reason. So, we could not develop tourism as per our expectations and plans. In fact, Nepal is the land of Gautam Budhha, penitential land of saints and sages and fertile land of varieties of cultures. So, if we develop tourism in a planned way, we will be able develop it as one of the major sectors of economy.
In my opinion, we are begging in a golden bowl saying that Nepal is a poor country. In fact, Nepal can be one of the richest countries in the world if we use our available resources properly and efficiently. Although Nepal has high potentiality in tourism development, we have been facing many challenges, such as management of air connectivity, physical infrastructure and other basic infrastructures for tourism development, i.e. provision of good hotels, information and communication facilities and assurance of security as well as good hospitality through qualified and trained human resources.
I strongly recommend the government to prepare basic infrastructures for tourism development. Similarly, the tourism sector should be connected with education from school level by developing curriculum. Truly speaking, our ambassadors who represent Nepal do not have required knowledge of Nepal and its prospects as they are not able to convey the cultural and natural diversity of Nepal to the world. So, they should be provided good knowledge and counseling before appointing them as ambassadors. An ambassador should launch the campaign and message delivery programs in their respected countries where they are appointed to represent Nepal.
Nepal is such a country where there is maximum potentiality of developing varieties of tourism spectra, viz. medicinal tourism, rural tourism, sport tourism, religious tourism, adventure tourism and so on. The government should give good orientation to the ambassador and representatives who represent Nepal in various countries. The Nepalese representatives at UNO, SAARC and other organizations should be able to convey the message regarding Nepal’s natural beauty, lofty mountains and other types of recreational activities that are available in Nepal. Most of the countries in Europe and America do not know about Nepal. It is due to the inefficiency of our representatives who represent the country in the global setting.
The data shows that Nepalese tourists spend around 94 billion rupees annually whilst visiting different countries, mainly in south Asia. So, bringing two million tourists to Nepal is not an impossible aim, but the government should have clear vision and effective plans. The experienced, dedicated and workaholic secretary should be appointed in the ministry for tourism. For mobilizing the workforce, the minister should also be capable and visionary. If we manage all these human resources, we can easily meet the target. In addition, in order to retain sustainable tourism, we should focus on domestic tourists too. The HISSAN, being an organization of a wide network of institutions, can play a pivotal role in making the campaign a success. It can mobilize its team and cooperate with the government in bringing the plan into reality.
The Visit Nepal-2020 is the national campaign with the view to promote tourism in Nepal. So, I appeal to the tourists of the world to visit Nepal and have a good experience about the diversity of Nepal and hospitality of Nepalese people. We are fully committed to providing hospitality services to your best satisfaction ensuring your safety and security.
Ram Hair Silwal is Chairperson/Principal of Himalaya School/College, Secretary of Central HISSAN and Chief Editor of College Readers.
