Kathmandu, June 17

To make the government’s Visit Nepal Year (VNY) 2020 campaign successful, representatives from Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) have recently started participating in several international trade fairs.

The government has targeted to bring in two million tourists by 2020.

Thus, along with the private sector representatives, NTB recently participated in international trade fairs in India, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. NTB has already participated in such trade fairs held in more than a dozen countries this fiscal.

NTB launched the VNY campaign in New Delhi on June 14. The event was participated by CEO of NTB Deepak Raj Joshi, VNY Campaign Coordinator Suraj Vaidya and other representatives from private sector and NTB. As India is the largest market for Nepali tourism industry, NTB has introduced religious as well as historic destinations of Nepal to attract Indian tourists.

Likewise, mountain trails, spiritual sites, luxury hotels along with homestay were some of the tourism products introduced in New Delhi.

Likewise, NTB participated in the 33rd International Travel Expo (ITE) and the 14th MICE Travel Expo in Hong Kong from June 13 to 16. According to NTB, around 12,000 visitors had gathered at the event. Those that visited the Nepal stall were briefed about the VNY 2020 campaign and presented with souvenirs like peacock windows, Buddha statues and posters of Everest, Pokhara and Lumbini that contained related tourism information.

Similarly, the board along with Society of Travel and Tour Operators Nepal (SOTTO-Nepal) had organised Nepal Sales Missions in Hanoi, Phnom Penh and Bangkok, the major cities of Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand on June 10, 12 and 14, respectively. Nepal was promoted as ‘Fountain of Buddhism’ in this event.

The participating travel trade companies from Nepal held business-to-business (B2B) meetings with the local buyers.

As stated by NTB, the buyers seemed interested in Buddhist site specific packages of Nepal. As these countries are Buddhist dominant countries, Nepal has been promoted as a must-visit destination for people to know about Buddha and Buddhism.

“As it is a national campaign, currently our major focus is on VNY 2020. We will be doing more of such activities in the coming days to promote our tourism industry,” said NTB CEO Joshi.