Skip to main content

Nepal can accommodate 7.44m tourists annually: NRB report

KATHMANDU, JAN 13 -
The number of tourist standard hotels in Nepal swelled 15.4 percent to 1,224 in the last fiscal year, said a study conducted by the central bank.
According to the survey entitled Economic Activities Report 2013-14 conducted by Nepal Rastra Bank’s research department in eight major cities in 47 districts, 20,408 room nights are available per day in the country.

This means Nepal can accommodate 7.44 million tourists annually with the existing infrastructure. Room nights or bed numbers of hotels grew 18.47 percent from the previous year.
The central bank survey, the third in the series, is based on field reports of economic activities and other indicators in Kathmandu, Pokhara, Biratnagar, Janakpur, Birgunj, Bhairahawa, Nepalgunj and Dhangadhi.
According to the study, tourist arrivals via air in Nepal in fiscal 2012-13 dropped a marginal 1.4 percent to 586,668, largely due to a significant dip in arrivals from the southern neighbour. Indian arrivals to Nepal via air transport dropped 15.1 percent in the last fiscal year. However, arrivals from third countries grew 3.9 percent.
“As Nepal failed to give continuity to its promotional campaign carried out in past years, its impact was visible in the arrival numbers,” the study said. A prolonged political transition has also been blamed for the failure to attract more tourists to Nepal.
The study report said that Nepal’s hospitality sector had improved gradually in terms of service and facilities. However, it has pointed out that Nepal has not been able to shift its focus from traditional tourism to other products.
The country has not been able to cash in on mountaineering, entertainment, pilgrimage and medical tourism to increase tourist length of stay.
“The policies and programmes have not been able to deal with challenges like diversifying tourism products and holding promotional campaigns beyond traditional areas to create employment, alleviate poverty and make tourism a major foreign exchange earning sector,” the study said.
REGION-WISE SCENARIO
Kathmandu has the highest number of tourist standard hotels and lodges followed by Pokhara. However, in terms of room night availability, Pokhara tops the chart with a 44 percent share of the total room nights available in the eight major cities surveyed.
There are 457 tourist standard hotels in Kathmandu, 10.92 percent more than last year. The Kathmandu area includes Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Sindhupalchok, Kavrepalanchok, Dhading, Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Dolakha districts in the survey. It produces 4,011 room nights, 23.23 percent more than before.
The survey shows that 586,668 tourists visited Kathmandu in the last fiscal year, among whom 143,196 were Indians.
The lake city Pokhara added 78 tourist standard hotels and lodges in the last fiscal. There are 456 hotels in Pokhara producing 8,969 rooms per night. The survey shows that tourist arrivals to Pokhara dropped sharply by 66.44 percent to 72,085 in the last fiscal year.
Biratnagar saw a 20 percent growth in the hotel sector. The city has 90 tourist standard hotels producing 1,744 rooms per night.
After Kathmandu, Biratnagar attracts the largest number of Indian visitors. There were 49,607 tourists in Biratnagar in the last fiscal among whom Indians amounted to 42,703 (up 21.22 percent).
The number of hotels in Birgunj soared 60 percent to 16 and produce 652 rooms per night. Birgunj received 123,518 tourists  including 13,753 Indian visitors.
Bhairahawa or the Siddharthanagar area received the highest number of tourists  after Kathmandu. Of the total arrivals, Indians numbered 3,900. Bhairahawa produces 1,054 rooms per night.(Source : ekantipur)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nepal the world’s best value destination for 2017 : Lonely Planet

KATHMANDU:  Nepal has been ranked as one of the best countries in the world to visit in 2017, according to Lonely Planet’s annual Best in Travel list. Publishing the travel list for 2017 on Tuesday, the world’s renowned travel guide has said that Nepal is the hottest destination for all budget travellers while the country came out on the fifth place among top 10 countries of the list “Nepal is the world’s number one destination in terms of service and value,” the Best in Travel 2017 list which showcases the top 10 countries, cities, regions and best value destinations for next year, added. The ‘travel bible’ notes that natural disasters can’t even keep Nepal down for long. “The 2015 earthquakes caused devastation, but what is most striking from a traveller’s perspective is not how much was lost but how much remains.” Landmark temples crumbled, but others came through with just the odd tile out of place, and whole swathes of the country escaped serious damage, includin...

Sanghiya Samajbadi Party formed under Rai

KATHMANDU, NOV 22 - The crusaders of federalism based on single identity on Monday announced the formation of a new party under the leadership of former CPN-UML Vice Chairman Ashok Rai. The new party Sanghiya Samajbadi Party was announced at a programme organised at a function organised at New Baneshwor in the Capital. Most of the leaders and cadres of the new party are from the UML and some are also from the Nepali Congress. The 98-member central ad hoc working committee includes eight vice chairmen, one general secretary, three deputy general secretaries and five secretaries. Bijaya Subba, Durga Mani Dewan, Prem Krishna Pathak, Bir Bahadur Lama, Rakanm Chemjong, Hemraj Rai, Mohammad Rijwan Ansari and Gopal Thakur have been appointed as the vice chairmen for the party whereas Rajendra Shrestha is the general secretary. Likewise, Ajambar Rai Kangmang, Radha Timilsina and Norsang Lama are the deputy general secretaries while Mina Gurung, Horilal Ch...

Kaliprasad Rijal, Senior Lyricist

 It's interview time : Moment of interview with Kaliprasd Rijal.His famous songs are, BIHANA UTHNE BITTIKAI, JHAREKO PAT JHAI BHAYO, CHARI LE TA CHHADERA GAIHALI, etc. Most of his songs were sang by Narayan Gopal, famous singer of nepal.  Remembering his old days  Young kaliprasad, with his wife  Searching his old photos  Photo pose with legend lyricist  Kaliprasad in his office IT'S ME