Tourism recovery slower than expected

Tourism recovery slower than expected
eKantipur.com, Jan 12 2007
BY KRISHNA REGMI

When peace was restored to this conflict-ridden Shangri-La, all had high hopes. They thought tourists would flock to Nepal in huge numbers. However, figures gathered so far suggest a different picture. Immediate boost for the tourism industry remains elusive as ever.

Neither the Nepali tourism industry seems to take advantage of rising outbound tourists from neighboring countries, nor can it receive any trickle-down effect from the booming Indian tourism industry.

Getting rooms at five-star hotels in India is a daunting task, where the average room rate has skyrocketed to US$ 350 a night. But, Nepali deluxe five-star hotels sell rooms at the very cheap price of around US$ 50. Still, many rooms in Nepali hotels are empty as sufficient numbers of tourists have not yet come.

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.

Shortage of product diversification, constraints in air accessibility, ineffective marketing strategy and poor tourism infrastructure deter the industry from sailing through with success, tourism entrepreneurs said.

“We (tourism sector and the government) are just moving ahead with the same faults, blaming our shortcomings to one excuse or another,” said Yogendra Shakya, former president of Hotel Association of Nepal. “Potential is there, but we are unable to tap it.”

He said the tourism industry needs to come out from its sole focus on the niche market of adventure tourism. “The pie for niche tourists in the international market is very low. The preference of global tourists has mainly concentrated on man-made products, instead of natural beauties,” he said. “There is immediate urgency to look into what Nepal needs to do to meet the diversified choices of tourists, as we lack foothold in the international market for mass travelers.”

Observing that nobody has seriously thought about tourism, he said even five-star hotels have given special focus to domestic tourists, rather than trying to woo foreigners.

Basant Mishra, president of Nepal Association of Tour Operators (NATO) said marketing strategy has remained weak, not being able to overcome the dented image of Nepal in the international market. “The growth is painfully slow. So, we have to realize something is gravely wrong in the way we operate the industry,” he said. Despite the peace, highways have been blocked frequently at different places, which has impeded tourism growth, he added.

Besides, bottleneck on air-accessibility has further prevented new opportunities from translating into visible gains, he said. Airlines flying to Nepal have been running out of air seats for the last couple of months.