Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, February 27:

As part of the efforts to revitalise adventure tourism in Nepal, the government has offered a very attractive travel incentive to mountaineers who wish to climb Mt Makalu and Mt Kanchanjangha.

“The government has announced the 50 per cent waiver of mountaineering royalty of Mt Makalu and Mt Kanchanjangha on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee Celebration of the first ascend on both the mountains, states a press release issued here. Expedition teams coming to scale the mountains from March to June this year will be given 50 per cent exemption on royalty, according to the ministry of culture, tourism and civil aviation.

As per the new decision, a team of seven members needs to pay a royalty of $5000 only.

The golden jubilee of Mt Jubilee of Mt Makalu and Mt Kanchanjangha is scheduled to be observed on May 15 and 25, respectively, stated the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) press release.

However, the tourism and travel entrepreneurs are not happy with the NTB and its promotional campaigns abroad.

“Despite an adverse business climate in the country, promotional campaigns by NTB is being intensified abroad spending ‘scarce’ resources,” complained tourism industry insiders, “and these campaigns have been confined in a conservative way which is getting no results at all.”

Recently private sector, including NTB and RNAC, participated at the 41st Travel and Tourism Fair and Outbound Travel Mart (TTF and OTM) held at Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai.

“Whatever way NTB promotes Nepal, participating in fairs whether in South Asian countries, Europe or America, Nepali hotel sector has not crossed its occupancy rate beyond 10-15 per cent in the last two years,” said hoteliers. “Some of the star hotels are in a mood to close down their business as they have millions of loans to be paid to the banks,” said the hotel source.

In such a situation, if institution like NTB does not work as per the expectation of Nepali tourism people, it is useless, said another hotelier, on condition of anonymity.

A four star hotel at the King’s way, Hotel Sherpa is on the verge of collapse, said one of the hotel staff. “It is incurring 20 million loss yearly,” he informed.

C S Gyanwali, a veteran tourism entrepreneurs complained, “NTB is just for its staff, not for tourism promotion, therefore its budget should be allocated to PATA, Nepal Chapter. ”Earlier road-shows in US and Europe used to be a grand success in attracting a huge number of tourists.”

“But at present NTB is wasting its budget for nothing,” he said, adding, “Is anybody listening?”

Gyanwali does not want to recall his bitter experience of loosing millions of rupees by closing down two of his hotels – Hotel Narayani in Lalitpur and Chitwan Hotel in Chitwan.

Another hotelier blamed that only NTB officials, who know nothing of travel business, take part in the travel fairs.

The recent meeting of BIMSTEC countries held in Kolkata had proposed a detailed plan of action on development of tourism related infrastructure and human resource development for tourism, poverty alleviation programmes and marketing of tourism products in the member countries, which might be a breather to Nepal.

Furthermore, regular flights from more than 20 destinations have made Nepal an international hub for tourists going to Tibet, Bhutan, Malaysia and Middle East countries. Air China has recently announced to operate four flights a week from Lhasa and Chendu from March 2005.