Kathmandu, May 9

In a bid to draw mega investment for tourism infrastructure, the government is gearing up to host Nepal Tourism Infrastructure Summit in the near future.

Planned to be organised to address the tourism infrastructure bottleneck within 2019, the event also aims to highlight the ‘Visit Nepal 2020’ tourism campaign and brand it among the global tourism fraternity.

Initially, the coordination committee of the Visit Nepal 2020 campaign led by industrialist Suraj Vaidya had proposed the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) to host the event. However, the ministry has not been able to give a nod to the proposal due to lack of leadership at the MoCTCA though ministry officials have said that it is crucial for the country to host such an event to address the tourism infrastructure bottleneck.

“The summit has been planned. However, we are yet to finalise the date and modality of the event,” informed Suresh Acharya, information officer at MoCTCA, adding that decisions regarding the tourism infrastructure summit will likely be made as soon as the ministry gets leadership.

The planned summit primarily intends to seek foreign partners for tourism infrastructure development in Nepal. “Despite having immense potential in the tourism sector, Nepal has not been able to unleash its potential properly due to lack of proper tourism infrastructure,” said Acharya.

Moreover, MoCTCA officials said that it is crucial for the country to focus on the development of tourism infrastructure in a bid to materialise the country’s tourism goals, especially those related to raise contribution of the tourism sector in Nepal’s gross domestic product value to a double-digit figure.

“Though the flow of foreign tourists has been increasing in Nepal, the country has not been able to draw a desirable number of high-end tourists, especially from Europe and America.

Thus, encouraging foreign mega investment in tourism infrastructure sector is a must,” added Acharya.

Meanwhile, Visit Nepal 2020 campaign’s coordinator Vaidya said summit is likely to be hosted in final months of 2019 if everything goes as planned. Though promotion of campaign got delayed due to various procedural and technical hurdles, he said that the committee has been branding the event among global media fraternity and developing and diversifying tourism products.