Nepal Tourism Year 2011

Nepal Tourism Year 2011

Nepal has proclaimed the year 20011 as a major national tourism campaign, dubbed as
Nepal Tourism Year. The sole purpose of NTY 2011 is to re-energize the slackened industry
, and thereby give a vital boost to the ailing economy. The ambitious campaign, which aims
at least a million visitors in the upcoming year, was formally launched in the capital on
February 26 this year amidst a colourful jamboree attended by the prime minister, ministers,
political heavyweights, top bureaucarts, tourism entrepreneurs, and various cultural and
ethnic groups. The was indubitably, quite flamboyant and enthusiastic for it reflected a
cohesive and concerted publicprivate partnership, expressing a firm commitment to make the
campaign a major success.

Since the launch, the government seems to have forgotten the programme because all the
activities in the run up to NTY-2011 are being handled by either the public-private partn-
ership organisatin Nepal Tourism Board or the private sector associations. Especially, the
lead taken by the private sector associations. Especially, the lead taken by the private
sector must be praised. Under the largely ceremonial NTY Main Organising Committee, headed
by the tourism minister, seasoned tourism entrepreneurs have placed themselves in the
forefront, steering the programme Implementation Committee and various other sub-committes
at the national and local levels. This is a clear departure from our past experiences of
markedly government-dominated stewadship of tourism events and projucts. It has definitely
rekindled some hope.

The private sectors active engagement with the NTY campaign has given birth to some intere-
sting new concepts and approaches. The home-stay package is one of them that will not only
help address the constrains of hotel bed availability but also provide the visitors an oppor-
tunity to feel the native life-style and culture from up close. For this, the pacific Asia
Travel Association, and other private sector stakeholders have already started training local
communities on home-stay plans for rourists.

Golden opportunity for Tourists

A Golden Opportunity for Tourists

1.Local participation-
Whatever additional demand we are trying to generate in the contest of this national campaign,
will be distributed to the new tourism areas which are being developed as site attractions.
The lacal communities are involved in planning and implementing the tourism activites in these
new areas. As for developing special tour packages to these areas, that is supposed to be done
by the private sector-i.e. the travel trade operators and hotels. We have enlisted different
potential sites with their resource base and are also trying rto encourage local communities
through awareness programmes and short-term human resource development programmes so that they
can handle the visitors in a nice and hospitable manner.

In terms of creating awareness about the ambitious NTY 2011 at the grasstoots, we have been able
to get the message across the local level. As a result, the the representatives of the general
public in a number of districts are already very eager to "do something" in their local products
and destinations, thereby contributing to the success of the national campaign as well. There
could be various ways to do so at the local level: providing home stay and lodging services
to the tourists, or even arranging for camping and trekking on new, lacal routes.

2.Sites, Activities, Facilities-
Our tourism products can be broadly classified into three categories: sites, activities, and
facilities. A site product is any place with its own unique element of attraction which can
motivate the tourist for a trip. Nepal has to offer a number of special tour and trekking packages
to such sites, including spiritual tours to various monasteries. Activities are basically a list of
things the visitors can do and enjoy once they are in Nepal. Here again we have fantastic offers in
the form of unique adventure-based activities like rafting, canoeing, mountain biking, sky-diving,
paragliding and even high altitude marathon. Staying with a local family in some rural, remote
area is in itself an attraction. In short, NTY-2011 will be a golden opportunity for the international
community to visit this beautiful and unique country and have a life-time experience. Coming to
facilities, especially the modern facilities, let's not forget that our tourism brand is 'Naturally Nepal".
So tourist should not expect modern facilities everywhere. Rather, they should try and enjoy the
closeness with nature as they will be exposed to different challenges arising out of the absence
of modern facilities of life. Every year, some 50,000 international tourist go to everest base
camp, where there is no road, on airport, no hotel and no electricity. This goes a long way
to explain Nepal's uniqueness as a destination, especially for adventure tourism.

3.Market Segmentation-
We've classified our international market in to three different categories. One is the conventional
market which includes Western Europek North America, Japan and Austrila, which contributes almost
45 percent to the total tourist arrival in Nepal. Second is the volume market comprising of India
and China, which is expected to contribute almost 35 percent of the overall tourist arrivals. And the
third emerging market is in the South East Asian countries starting from Korea to Thailand,
Singapore and everything goes well, we are confident about achieving the goal of bringing in a million
tourists for NTY from these three specific markets alone--700 thousand by air and 300 thousand by road.

4.Political Commitment-
However, we need a firm commitment from the political parties to support the NTY campaign. All
political parties have put the tourism industry in high priority in their election manifestoes.
But the recent actions of some parties do not match their commitments to the tourism industry.
Bandhs, general strikes and other political disturbances have always proved detrimental to a steady
growth of tourism, which is primarily a service-oriented industry. Our concern is that service
delivery should not be distrubed, no matter what. Everyone should clearly understand that only
tourism, if it is given a fair chance to thrive, can give us quick economic recovery with minimum
additional investment.

To sum up, by the end of 2011, we want to see tourism development integrated with the national
development process. The confidence we have been able to build up with the outbound operators in tourist
generating markets in recent times has been very positive. This year growth forecast for global
tourism is 3-4 percent , but we are achieving 10 times more than that. And we are confident that it
will continue.

Mojito for Nepal Tourism Year 2011

Mojito for NTY 2011

Hotel De L'Annapurna has introduced mojito, a cuban Highball cocktail, as yet another drink
for the guests on the eve of NTY 2011. The world "Mojito" comes from the African word "mojo"
which means "to place a spell", but Africa has no claim on Mojito, the cocktail, as many attri-
bute its origon to cuba where it is said to be created by slaves working in sugarcane fields in
the late 1800s.

The Basic mojito receipe is a combination of mint sprigs, soda water, lime juice, white rum and
and sugar or sugarcane juice, white rum and sugar or sugarcane juice. More authentic is sugarcane
juice,  they say. And for the freshest taste, the limes should be freshly juiced and if sugar is
used it should be dissolved in the lime juice. Some recipes advocate adding about a dozen
mint leaves at this point in the process and "muddling" them, or mixing them with a pestle to
dissolve the sugar. Further, instead of juicing the lime, Bacardi, which claims to be the
authentic mojito maker, suggests using slices of the lime half in the muddling process.

After the ingredients are mised or muddled, rum is added followed by soda water. The mix is about
about one part rum to three parts soda. The drink should be served on the rocks in a tall
glass, and you can garnish the mojito with mint, lime, or both if you'd like.