Despite sporadic strikes witnessed in Nepal in 2009, major tourism activities saw a growth compared to the previous year.
According to Monday’s The Kathmandu Post, the number of tourists putting down trekking, mountaineering, rafting and golf as their purpose of visit has gone up.
Tourism entrepreneurs are optimistic of increasing visitor numbers in 2010 and doubling arrivals during the upcoming Nepal Tourism Year 2011 national campaign.
Following the government’s ambitious target of bringing one million tourists, different tourism related stakeholders are hopeful of achieving the target but raised concerns about the deteriorating political environment.
“We are targeting about 200,000 trekkers in 2010,” said Sitaram Sapkota, president of the Trekking Agents Association of Nepal.
He said that the 2011 campaign would be more crucial to trekking agencies as they have targeted to host around 300,000 tourists. Sapkota said that there were 125,000 trekkers in 2008. The number increased to 130,000 in 2009.
Ang Tshering Sherpa President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), said that visitors for mountaineering in the country increased to 7,500 in 2009 from 6,500 in 2008.
According to him, the NMA hosted 1,800 mountaineers in 2008 and the number had increased to around 1,950 in 2009.