Tourism, as a mainstay of Nepal’s economy, is growing because of additional attractions such as casinos, a host of adventure sports like Everest Skydiving and mountain biking in Nepal’s mountains and hills as well as international film and drama festivals. In Oct 2008, 50,567 tourists visited Nepal, with the arrival of Indian tourists up by 14 percent, thus making the arrival highest in the last 8 years. The Maoist insurgency that cost almost 13,000 lives in a span of 10 years (1996-2006), hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814 in 1999, Royal massacre in 2001, King Gyanendra’s coup in 2005, all contributed to a decrease in tourist arrival. However, after the signing of Comprehensive Peace Accord in 2006 that ended the civil war, which made Nepal a democratic republic in 2008, has worked in favor for the tourism sector. About 6 percent of the total foreign exchange earnings in 2010 are expected to come from tourism.
International tourism receipts also grew to USD 944 billion in 2008. The H1N1 influenza virus outbreak caused a decline in tourists worldwide by 880 million with about 6 percent decline in international receipts. Although the World Travel and Tourism Council (WITC) has revised its forecast on a 2 percent rise in the real GDP growth, the tighten fiscal policy and debt servicing liability of the Western consumers is expected to bring down expenditures to its 2008 level by making the pace of recovery in 2011 rather slow in Asia Pacific region. However, the share of tourism in global economy is expected to grow by over 10 percent in 2011. Tourism will be a key driver to poverty reduction by creating an additional 66 million jobs by 2020, 50 million alone in Asia. This will make Asia Pacific region the second most important tourism destination in the world by 2020.
South Asia lacks conducive operating environment to facilitate and harness existing potential of tourism. This is why the number of visitors to this region accounted only about 1.1...