Apropos of the news story “Hoteliers seek proper infrastructure” (THT, March 23, Page 11), after labouring tirelessly for the past 70 years, Nepal tourism happily breasted the one-million tourist milestone tape last year.

Perked up by this success, it wants to top the two-million watershed in the next 21 months. Jolly high hope, one might exclaim with disbelief.

Of course, this will depend on early completion of under-construction international airports, upgradation of highways, East-West corridors, trekking routes etc, all of which might go way beyond 2020. Since the expansion of fleet might take decades, it would be wise for the tourism industry to work out transportation of tourists with hundreds of other international airlines.

Four Chinese planes are sitting duck at TIA for lack of pilots. Expansion of fleet might create chaos in the short term. More than fleet expansion, we must go for additional runways and parking bay for aircraft at TIA. But all these may be little too late for 2020.

We might also need many more five-star hotels which should not be much of a problem as we can access Chinese builders who can put up multi-storey buildings within a couple of months. We also need to clean up our dust and fumes, especially around flattened heritage sites, and improve our traffic.

The new minister has rightly called for more tourism contribution - he puts at 25 percent - to the national economy that is largely propped up by remittances from the sweat, blood and tears of the migrant workers. If true, it is a matter of great satisfaction that one foreign tourist arrival employs 10 Nepalis. But first, tourism industry as a whole has to agree on the figure.

Last time, one tourism honcho was quoted as saying one tourist creates 13 jobs for Nepalis “Jungle safari operators demand regulations” (THT, January 28, Page 5).

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu

Culinary

This is with reference to the article “Senior nutrition, What to eat as we age” (THT, March 23, Page 8). This piece drew my attention and also made me nutritionally skeptical about what does it mean to tailor the significant message of this sort to the public. I had been thinking a long time ago that when would be a day for the mainstream newspapers to disseminate the epicurean information to the public. It is extremely awe-inspiring to see THT is attaching a great deal of importance when it comes to covering the food related issues. I would like to applaud for this laudable task wholeheartedly. It is indispensable to update the culinary matters in the newspapers.

As we know that there are swarms of people who do not know what it means to acquire nutritional information. I think it would be even better to illustrate the information as in visual cum picture because a picture speaks thousand words. Last but not least, the school of culinary sciences should also be another side of discussion to bring a radical change in society. It is time we started talking about issues related to healthy eating.

Shiva Neupane, Melbourne