Kathmandu, November 2

The government today named industrialist Suraj Vaidya as the coordinator of the ‘Visit Nepal 2020’ tourism promotional campaign.

Amid the tourism fraternity criticising the government for delaying the appointment of the campaign’s coordinator and not making the campaign’s secretariat proactive, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) appointed Vaidya to lead the tourism campaign for the next three years.

Vaidya is the chairman of Vaidya’s Organisation of Industries and Trading Houses (VOITH) and former president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Similarly, he is also the former president of SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SAARC CCI).

After two similar mega tourism campaigns in 1998 and 2011, the ‘Visit Nepal 2020’ campaign is more ambitious with a target to bring in two million tourists annually by 2020. However, the slow preparations for the campaign by the government, including the delay in appointing the national coordinator of the campaign had worried the tourism stakeholders.

Tourism entrepreneurs Karna Shakya and Yogendra Shakya were coordinators of such tourism events in 1998 and 2011, respectively.

Ghanashyam Upadhyay, spokesperson for MoCTCA, said that the national coordinator is the leadership post of the ‘Visit Nepal 2020’ campaign with executive power. “It is now up to the national coordinator and his team to adopt and implement best possible measures to make the tourism campaign grand and successful,” he said.

Meanwhile, Vaidya said that he will work together with all the stakeholders to make the event successful and also make it a milestone for tourism development in Nepal.

The government has so far finalised half a dozen international tourism events to be held in Nepal in 2020 and initiatives to train 10,000 human resources across Nepal for the event. It has also launched tourism promotion portals in various languages, including Hindi and Mandarin, among others.