Nepal is Wooing Indian Tourists Vigorously, to Come and Experience many new Products on Offer!

Welcome back as CEO, Nepal Tourism Board. By now, you’ve been back almost a month. I’m sure it was all too familiar to you, when you got back. And yet you must have found that some things have changed. What are the big things which you feel in your new tenure, you’ll be looking upon as a priority?

Thanks for your good wishes, nice to be among friends from the tourism industry. The number one priority is that we have not recovered from Covid to get the same number of visitors, as we did in 2019, and then the revenue that we were getting from the visitors is also not the same. So that is the first priority. Other destinations like Maldives have recovered quite well.

How much are you short of 2019?

In 2023, our number was less by 14%. And in last August it was down by 23%. But in September the month before I joined, coincidentally, we had crossed the before Covid level. So, we are 4% more than the September arrival of 2019.

So your joining has been auspicious for Nepal tourism. So how do you plan to go about this otherwise?

Post covid, most of the visitors, are choosing destinations that are more nature based and isolation-based activities. And Nepal is perfect as that destination of choice. We have climbing, trekking, rafting, or jungle safaris, we are nature based. We have to offer these products in different markets. Our strategy would be maintaining our image in the existing markets and at the same time connecting with the new segments in new markets – basically, it all boils down to more marketing and promotion, overall. 

So, at this point in time if you were to prioritize your markets for quick recovery or for the low hanging fruit, which would be the top three markets that you would aim at?

For now, we are targeting India, Dhaka and Southeast Asian countries as our first and immediate targets. And at the same time, we’ll be targeting more in the Middle East. Also in Middle East, we have very good connectivity; more than 10 airlines connecting per week. The local community is our target, but the affluent Indian communities and other European and American expats who live there.

The main strategy would be maintaining our traditional markets, such as Europe, USA, Japan, India and grow demand from other Asian markets where our connectivity is very good these days.

You mentioned that for Nepal some 95% of your traffic is nature lovers for one reason or the other. So, your potential tourists from Dhaka or Southeast Asia or Middle East, are they also coming for the same?

These days from Middle East, there is a very good interest not only in nature-based activities, but in climbing also. Big personalities, be it from the royal families of that region, all the other influencers they have climbed Mount Everest and other 8,000 plus mountains very recently, so it has become popular. And not only that, Kathmandu is a very lively city. 

Coming to the India market in particular, how is the connectivity doing? Two interrelated questions, one is that Nepal itself is yet to have a strong enough carrier of its own. But having said that, is the connectivity and new city pairs emerging out of India, or are we still Delhi and Mumbai centric to generate traffic for Nepal? 

There is very good interest and very good connectivity from Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata and Banaras. Our strategy is to leverage the newly grown Indian infrastructure, for example, in U.P, also, I heard that there are more than four international airports now. 

So, do we see more new city pairs? Why not Ahmedabad to Kathmandu, as an example, considering that Ahmedabad generates lot of traffic? 

Nepal has offered and has made various air service agreements with India.  We have to promote more, and then we have to connect with the right segments. And that also will be lobbying for this.

I’m presuming you are in touch with your civil aviation department to talk to airlines to initiate more flights from newer points.

Yes. Last month only our minister was there in India where the airline and connectivity related issues were discussed. We are hoping that in a few months of time, there will be additional airlines and flights connecting different cities with Nepal.

You have any targets for the India market for the current year 2024?

Yes. The government has set a target by year end, total arrival to increase to 1.6 million. In 2023, our arrival was 1 million only by air. Indian visitors who come by land are not counted in the national arrival roster of visitors.

And would that be the largest inbound for you as a market?

Yes. Then from India itself by air, Indian arrivals in 2023, it was nearly 275,000. And we for this year, our target is 350,000 by air only.

Nepal over the last few years, let’s say five to eight years, has been steadily adding new products. And some of these are very niche and very high-quality driven experiences. I’m not too sure if these are being adequately promoted or being publicized in the Indian market. Am I right? 

You are very right. Very recently there are so many new products on offer, but these products are not marketed well yet internationally. The last one or one and a half years, from Nepal Tourism Board side, because of a few internal reasons, we could not promote; there was almost zero promotional programmes. And recently we have restarted, with participation in the upcoming WTM, and we thereafter will be participating in many other promotional platforms in India. And not only the B2B platforms, we’ll be promoting consumer-based publicity programmes as well. And product wise, our new offers are the wellness spa, new kind of adventure activities and even the very unique festivals. Our wildlife is not so well promoted in that segment.

There is also a very growing market out of India for these small offsite meetings from the corporate sector. And I think Kathmandu and around, you must be having a hundred such opportunities for offsites. 

Indeed, that is true. We have to connect with these segments now, and we’ll be aggressively doing this.

Traditionally, when you talk of marketing, is all of it centrally driven out of Katmandu, or do you have representatives in key markets? How does it work?

Product offer-wise, we have so many areas to market. For example, the world’s best trekking trail is in the Annapurna region, we have National Parks, so many religious sites and numerous segmented areas and activities, we have not promoted much in their respective markets. And we’ll be doing this. And then I would also add that Nepal is a very, very experienced country in terms of handling inbound tourism.

Absolutely.

Our private sector has several decades plus experience in handling international tourism. But over the years, we have created a strong image in our source markets that Nepal is a mountainous country, and there are numerous adventure activities, but we have so much more to offer. So, we’ll be promoting Nepal as a lifetime experience destination.

Two quick questions. One is that, if I remember correctly, the revenues of the Nepal Tourism Board come from a tourism cess that you impose on the tourists who are coming from overseas. So, this budget that you get, year on year, will depend upon the inflow of the number of tourists that you get in the year. So 2024 is promising to be a good productive year. So, I’m presuming you’ll have bigger, better budgets for 2025.

Yes, we are expecting that. In 2025, we’ll have a comfortable budget to promote Nepal more.

And my last question to you is that over the years domestic tourists within Nepal, I think have come sufficiently of age. Whenever we go to some of these five-star hotels, or even many of the restaurants on say, Darbar Marg, you’ll see local citizens enjoying their evenings, as family entertainment. So, I think this segment too has come of age. Has it been factored into your tourism plans?

That is there. I would like to share one very interesting fact. Unlike in other countries like India or China, our tourism evolution is completely different. Our tourism started first from long haul inbound market, then short haul, inbound market. Then in last 20-25 years only, our domestic tourism has grown and our outbound tourism has grown.  We call it a reverse pyramid model.

That’s interesting for sure. In India, though, some of it has been almost the same. We had a small inbound but majorly domestic.

And that is really helping us during the crisis time to survive and for the industry to recover. And it is also one of the value-added activities for our industry.

The recent change in Nepal tourism is there are so many international chain hotels, especially post covid. They are in operation. More than 20 international chain hotels have started operations in Nepal, not only in Katmandu, but also in other parts of Nepal. And in those properties also, domestic tourism is helping to survive and drive them. Our product service has also evolved. It is a completely new experience awaiting the visitor to Nepal.

Regarding, visas – many countries, particularly in the region around us, like Thailand, Singapore, our immediate neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, have introduced visa free regimes from selected markets. Some have opened up the door saying no visa at all.  Is Nepal also contemplating anything like that?

Especially you know, from big markets we don’t charge any visa, especially for Indians. And then the one-time visitors from other South Asian countries.

So, do they get visa on arrival?

Yes, we have visa on arrival for all the countries except 10 or 12 countries.

And these are the long-haul markets?

These are for instance a few African countries, a few others where we witness some conflict.

All in all, we have an excellent product, catering to diverse interests. And, I can say with confidence that many of our newer products would be of immense interest to the well-heeled Indian traveller. I would appeal to my Indian tourists, if you have visited us ten years ago, or even longer, or even five years ago, there is a totally new destination awaiting you.