Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) is running #Ghumphir2073 since the start of this Nepali year of 2073 but it is unable to attract travel-addict Arabs.

The Arab nations including prosperous Gulf monarchs from Middle East are rich in per capita income owing to fortunes made by fossil fuels exports. Various media outlets say the Arabs are increasingly traveling for personal and professional reasons.

More than 7.5 million Arab tourists, mostly Iraqi, Lebanese, Saudi, Algerian, Egyptian and Jordanian, visited Turkey in three year’s time. This is a huge tourist flow of the Arabs in terms of its total population.

To talk of Indian tourist arrival from Arab, more than 400,000 tourists from the Gulf visited India in the past four years.

If we are to draw half of Gulf visitors coming to India, Nepal’s tourist arrival would increase by 25 per cent as we receive 800,000 tourists on an average every fiscal.

This is not a far-fetched idea to allure the Arabs as we have millions of migrant workers, dozens of entrepreneurs and diplomatic outposts in many Arab countries that accommodate 21 nations from northern and north eastern parts of Africa and southwest Asia.

This is a huge tourist market for Nepal with world-class travel attractions featured in various travel portals. Deep-pocketed visitors from the Gulf region can be lured in our nation.

The Gulf countries are rice in man-made beauties but they are in search of natural beauties like ours.

World-class traveling options and adventures like rafting, paragliding, mountaineering, trekking, mountain biking, bungee jumping, canoeing, jungle safari, rock-climbing, bird-watching, mountain flights, among others, are all available in Nepal.

The way wealthy Nepalese travelers frequent Qatar and Dubai for man-made attractions, and the Arab travelers can be lured to feel Nepal’s natural intimacy with diverse weather pattern within a small elevation.

Qatar and Dubai are the best intra-regional tourist hubs in the Arab region. NTB, Nepal’s diplomatic missions and tourism entrepreneurs can launch publicity drives there so that millions of tourists within and outside the Arab region can be encouraged to visit Nepal.

Catchy tourist commercials in Arabic televisions, advertisements in Arabic print outlets, online campaigning and mouth-publicity by migrant Nepalese would be able to attract the Arab tourists.