Kathmandu, December 21:

Nepal could well become a good tourist destination for meditation, but due to the lack of publicity and promotion, this potential has not been tapped.

Basanta Raj Mishra, president of the Nepal Association of Tour Operators, said: “We can’t quote a figure of how many spiritual tourists arrive each year. Meditation programmes should be managed in an organised way and highlighted in the international market. Meditation is more than religion. People meditate for sound health.”

Despite the possibility of a huge market for spiritual tourism here, the government has not brought plans to increase the tourist inflow.

Subash Niraula, senior director of Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), said: “Meditation tourism has not been specialised in Nepal so that we could initiate promotion campaigns to attract tourists. Also we don’t have enough services available for meditation in Nepal.”

He further said NTB has a plan to promote spiritual tourism and they are in the process of categorising pilgrimage tourism.

An annual report “Nepal Tourism Statistics 2006”, prepared by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism shows 15.4 per cent of the tourists were here on pilgrimage, 38 per cent on holidays and another 17.4 per cent for trekking and mountaineering.

In 2005, the number of tourists on pilgrimages was as a mere 47,521 whereas in 2006 it increased to 59,298 — 25,876 from Sri Lanka, 8,006 from India, 1,214 from Japan and the remaining from other countries.

“Meditation is an art of balancing our emotions and relaxing our overtaxed mind. Without meditation the only alternative is medication and unknowingly people choose the latter,” said Swami Anand Arun, a guru at Osho Tapoban.

“People needs alcohol and drugs to sleep and nicotine and caffeine to wake up,” he said, adding: “Psychologists say three quarters of illness and 80 per cent of physical diseases are rooted in the mind. Humanity has not found a better tool than meditation to control our minds and body.”