KATHMANDU: Nepal stands to be a gay hub soon, with the Blue Diamond Society, homosexual community of Nepal, Pink Mountain Tours and Travels, among others planning to welcome thousands of gay tourists in the country.

These organisations would be offering luxury honeymoon and wedding packages to attract gay tourists in the country targeting the Nepal Tourism Year 2011.

If the gay tourist like to honour their relationship by getting married on the Mt Everest, that would also be managed, said Sunil Babu Pant, leader of the country's homosexual rights movement.

Talking to The Himalayan Times today, Pant, who is also Asia's only open gay Member of Parliament, said that gay could be a good source of earning foreign currency.

"Due to their isolated life and high income, gay could be a good source to boost the national economy if we could promote gay tourism in country," he added.

He stated, "Nepal is very popular in adventure tourism, thus, we just wanted to ensure the gay that Nepal could be a safe tourism destination for them." According to Pant, many Asian countries, including neighbouring country China and India, are yet to promote tourism for gay. “If we missed this opportune time to start gay tourism now, these countries might overtake us,” he reasoned.

According to Pant, out of the total population, 10 per cent are third-gender. Out of which, thirty per cent of them love to travel because they have no kids and have high income, he said.

He also expressed sadness over the lack of support from other concerned sector.

He also informed that many gays, including high-ranking officials and politicians from different countries, have started inquiring about their work and started booking too.

Earlier, in the 1970s, Nepal was famous for hippies. Downtown Kathmandu was filled with 'do-not-worry' people of West. The trend was broken in 1976 when the government banned the consumption of hashish, opium and other drugs.

Manisha Dhakal, a transgender said that the gay tourism in the coming days could be a boon for them.

"Due to the lack of education, we could not have a good job but the gay tourism could create jobs for people like us," he said. Meanwhile, Nepal Tourism Board said that there was no such programme to promote gay tourism in the country in the year 2011.

Laxman Gautam, manager, NTB said, "We don't have partiality or segregation in terms of sexual orientation of tourist thus everybody is welcomed to our country."

"As long as the person pays, we don't have any objection on their entry whether its gay or lesbian or any other," he added.