Recovery of tourism
The year 2015, marked first by the devastating earthquakes and later by the border blockade, represented one of the lowest points for Nepali tourism. Hotels in major tourist attractions like Pokhara and Chitwan would be lucky to have half of their rooms filled in the peak season. Many restaurants in popular tourist haunts like Thamel (Kathmandu) and Lake Side (Pokhara) were barely breaking even. Our travel agencies and mountain expedition organizers were pummeled as their cancellation rates rocketed. According to the Department of Immigration (DoI), in 2014 around 790,000 foreign tourists had visited Nepal; in comparison, in 2015, just 550,000 came to Nepal from abroad—a 30 percent decrease. The number of domestic travelers also plunged as people got busy rebuilding after the earthquakes and, during the five months of the blockade, stayed put as there was no fuel to travel. But to the joy of all those involved in tourism, the country is quickly recovering from the twin shocks of 2015. In 2016, the number of foreign tourists visiting Nepal was back up to 730,000, a 24 percent increase on 2015. But even more encouraging has been the growing desire of Nepalis to see their own country.
But it would be a mistake to infer from the revival of tourism in 2016 that all is now hunky dory. For instance, even though more foreign tourists visited Nepal in 2016, as compared to 2015, the country is yet to completely recover: for instance in 2012, there were around 803,000 foreign tourists; in 2013, 798,000 had come. So 2016 represented only partial recovery. As the memories of the earthquakes and the blockade fade, we can expect more tourists in the months and years ahead. Interestingly, China has decided to promote Nepal among its out-bound tourists in 2017, which could be a huge fillip for Nepal.
According to China Tourism Research Institute, in 2015 around 120 million Chinese travelled abroad, spending US $105 billion in the process. But in the year 2016, only around 104,000 Chinese visited Nepal, peanuts considering the huge Chinese market. If only one percent of Chinese travelers can be persuaded to come to Nepal, and the new Chinese initiative will certainly help with this, it would amount to a revolution in Nepali tourism. So besides appealing to China to send more of its people to Nepal, we could also do a better job of promoting Nepal as a safe and relatively cheap destination in China.
The other priority has to be upgrading the Tribhuvan International Airport, still the country’s sole air connection point with the outside world. The TIA toilets are a lot cleaner and the arrival hall has also gotten a facelift, compared to even a few years ago. But the airport still sucks in baggage handling and it has already made it clear that given its limited capacity there is no room to add more international flights. If the main gateway to Nepal has so many problems, it is hard to convince more tourists to come, whatever the other strengths of the country. The glacial pace of rebuilding of major tourist draws like the Kathmandu Durbar Square is another put-off. As is the country’s image as a perennially unstable country. The tourist numbers in 2016 are encouraging, but far from satisfactory on the face of growing competition from other countries for foreign and, increasingly, even Nepali, tourists.
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