Kathmandu, April 13

The government organised a soft launch of Visit Nepal Year (VNY) 2020 campaign today in Pokhara.

With a target of bringing in two million tourists, the soft launch of VNY 2020 campaign was organised coinciding with Nepali New Year’s Eve. A meeting of the main organising committee of the campaign held on April 10 had taken a decision to organise the soft launch of the campaign today.

Prithivi Subba Gurung, chief minister of Gandaki province, had initiated the soft launch. Campaign coordinator Suraj Vaidya, CEO of Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) Deepak Raj Joshi, representatives from the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, along with tourism entrepreneurs and stakeholders were present during the inauguration of the VNY campaign.

As Pokhara is already a tourist hub of the country, the government had decided to organise the soft launch of the campaign from the lake city, so that it could also be promoted as the capital city for tourism, said Biplav Poudel, coordinator of VNY soft launch event.

“Prior to the inauguration event, several cultural floats were paraded around Pokhara — from Birauta Chowk to Phewa Lake and passing through Ranta Chowk and Barahi Chowk,” added Poudel.

The government has already organised Visit Nepal Year twice — in 1998 and 2011 — targeting to bring 500,000 tourists and one million tourists, respectively. While the targets could not be met in both the years, the shortfall was greater in 2011. Nepal had welcomed a total of 463,684 visitors in 1998 and 736,215 tourists via air route and land route in 2011.

For VNY 2020, the government along with the private sector is conducting several promotional activities within the country and abroad with the slogan ‘Lifetime Experience’.

The major objective of the campaign will be to provide newer and different experiences from the same tourist destinations. Moreover, the campaign organisers have said they will also focus on highlighting unnoticed destinations across the country.