When you have too many hotels chasing too few guests, a price war is likely to set in
There is no sector that the coronavirus pandemic has not impacted, but the tourism industry has suffered the most. With the country shut down for months on end and the country's only international airport closed to traffic, Nepal's tourism that depends heavily on foreign visitors was bound to buckle. Although the tourists are back with the COVID-19 scare slowly receding, it will take some more years before they reach the pre-COVID levels of 2019. As Nepal celebrates World Tourism Day today, Tuesday, the stakeholders must ask if Nepal has a post-COVID tourism strategy to revive the industry. Times are different from the pre-pandemic years, what with the Russian invasion of Ukraine since February this year that has only added to the woes already created by the pandemic. Europe is in great financial difficulties due to the energy crunch, while China, another major tourist generating country, has been shutting down cities one after another to control the COVID pandemic. Moreover, it's not just Nepal that wants to see a rebound of its tourism, many others countries of Asia and elsewhere are also floating attractive packages to lure visitors, creating intense competition among nations.
It is surprising why Nepal, despite decades of tourism promotion, has not been able to lure the desired number of tourists. Countries like Cambodia and Laos attract many times more visitors than Nepal, so does Tanzania in Africa, although Nepal is better poised to be a major tourist destination. According to Hotel Association Nepal, the country can handle five million tourists a year, but why is it stuck with a little over a million (pre-pandemic level)? Some Rs 15 trillion is said to have been invested in the hotel industry, but if hotels are to remain unoccupied for the better part of the year, it does little justice to the investment. When you have too many hotels chasing too few guests, a price war is likely to set in, which does no one any good, including the country's foreign exchange earnings.
This also applies to travel, trekking and rafting agencies. In the 1990s, there were about 400 travel and trekking agencies each and about 200 rafting agencies. Today there are more than nine times their numbers.
Nepal is launching the 'Visit Nepal Decade 2023- 33' next year. Hopefully, it has not been launched in desperation, but with a concrete roadmap for rejuvenating the tourism industry as a whole. The two previous Visit Nepal Years failed to generate the desired number of tourists, and we should have a fairly good idea as to why they did not materialise. They have taught us that nature's gift alone or the monuments left behind by our predecessors will not help bring in tourists. Tourists loathe the pollution in the capital, the snarling traffic, the concrete jungle that is taking over what was once a pristine countryside in Kathmandu and elsewhere. Despite the tourism potential in different parts of the country, something is holding it up from expanding tourist activities beyond the Kathmandu-Pokhara-Chitwan route, and the Everest region. Perhaps, the new Mayor of Kathmandu Balendra Shah has a trick or two up his sleeve to extend the stay of the visitors, especially in the Kathmandu Valley.
Invest in research
There are several research institutes, either run by various universities or the government, in multiple sectors. But they are rarely contributing to the nation-building process thanks to lack of motivation of the persons involved or lack of funds required for conducting research in the given fields. Universities are the best places for conducting any kind of research, which takes a lot of time, resources and skilled human resources to bring about substantive results, especially in the field of science and technology.
The government policies and programmes unveiled without conducting a thorough study in the related field have been proved to be a total failure.
Underlying the role played by research institutes, PM Sher Bahadur Deuba the other day said only evidence-based policies could contribute to overall development of the country. However, sad to say, most of the research institutes are not functioning as per their missions and goals due to political interference, frequent changes in their leadership and lack of adequate funds and human resources. Nepal needs to identify some specific areas of research, which can benefit the country in the short and long-term. No country has made progress without making investment in research.
A version of this article appears in the print on September 27, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.