Promising India Incoming, says one of Nepal’s most experienced tour operators. Amatya is forecasting a cautious yet positive season later this year.
Managing Director, Kora Tours
Incoming from traditional markets
The incoming traffic from Europe compared to last year has increased, especially from the UK, Germany and France. These are our traditional markets as well. Incoming from India has decreased compared to last year due to the increase of airfare. And it seems the Indians are selecting some other destination as well.
Promotions from NTB
And unfortunately, we have not been able to do the promotion from our side, especially Nepal Tourism Board. Incoming from China has decreased because after COVID it has not really picked up yet, but we hope that in the coming season it might improve, though China has declared 2025 as Visit Nepal year. The market which has very surprisingly increased is Bangladesh. From Bangladesh we’ve been receiving quite a few over the years.
Air capacity trends
Air capacity from 1st of June has increased. Air India Express is flying from Bengaluru. Air India has added one more flight, that’s six flights a day from Delhi. Likewise, we have some other airlines also flying. So, we hope by the end of year, we might cross 19 figures, pre-COVID figure. Next year, we’ll be hitting almost 1.6 million tourists. The way is going.
Domestic tourism trends
Domestic tourism is quite substantial and is going to stay here in Nepal for quite a long period because Nepalese after COVID started traveling, especially the neighboring places, Kathmandu, Chitwan, Pokhara, Nagarkot, Dhulikhel, Jomsom, Rara, even in the far east, where we have the tea statesates and even to the west. So, we are very hopeful that the number of tourists, footfall is going to increase in the coming years.
Pricing is critical at hotels
The price of some of the hotels has gone up very slightly, less than actually 5%. Rate of some of the hotels has gone but mostly constant, not much change. Nepal definitely needs to do aggressive marketing in India to increase Indian traffic. Hopefully, Nepal Tourism Board will take up this matter. We need to do all kinds of print media, electronic media, digital media, all we need to use all of them; all the marketing tools to promote India because India was, India is and India will remain the largest market for Nepal for many, many years.
The Importance of India for incoming
We cannot ignore this market and it’s very, very important for us for many reasons. The Nepal Tourism Board is very keen to do it and I’m sure they will be willing to spend some money to go on electronic or print media or digital media.
And I see in the coming months, traffic from India is definitely going to increase, especially in Dussehra, Christmas and New Year time. And so, with all the European and American traffic, that’s going to increase. We are very hopeful about the increase to its footfall in the coming season.