New Delhi (NVI): The government of Nepal is preparing itself to impress the Indian tourists after COVID-19 situation gets improves and lockdown restrictions are lifted.
According to the plan by Gandaki provincial government of Nepal, it has decided to keep the Indian tourists at the top of the priority list.
Nepal’s Tourist Minister Bikash Lamsal said, “The Nepal government is planning to give utmost preference to Indian tourists on their list as they form a major part of Nepal foreign tourist arrivals.”
Last year, more than 12 lakh tourists visited Pokhara-The City of Lakes, out of those 40 per cent were Indian tourists. In the year 2018, approximately 11.73 lakh tourists visited Nepal and the majority of the tourists were from India.
Moreover, the top activities like trekking, boating, paragliding, kayaking, etc are very popular among tourists in Nepal.
In addition, Bikash said as they were not able to host the tourists this year due to Coronavirus induced lockdown, but they are making efforts to welcome more foreign tourists in the upcoming years.
The minister also said, “We are celebrating the year 2019-2022 as Tourism Year with a target to host two million tourists. 2019 was Domestic Tourism Year, 2020 Neighbour Tourism Year, 2021 Tourism Infrastructure Improvement Year and 2022 International Tourism Year.”
As the situation is not favourable, we are working on plans to cover the loss incurred this year and will be focusing on revamping efforts next year, he added.
Due to the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, Nepal has suffered a loss of around 13 crore Nepali rupees on a daily basis because of the stop on all the tourist activities.
Reportedly, at least 10,674 companies have been shut down due to the recession and the tourism sector suffered huge losses in the last four months due to COVID-19.
-RJV
