Annual Development Plan targets 1.2 million tourists this fiscal
KATHMANDU, JUL 28 -
The government has envisaged attracting 1.2 million tourists this fiscal year under its Annual Development Plan 2013-14. The figure is 50 percent higher than the annual tourist arrivals last fiscal 2012-13. The country received 803,092 tourists last fiscal year, according to official data.
The National Planning Commission (NPC) last week unveiled the plan, which was devised by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.
Based on the policies, programmes and strategies for the development of tourism, the ministry formulates the annual plan coinciding with the budget and is endorsed by the NPC.
The plan has targeted increasing the average length of stay of tourists to 13 days from 12.87 days recorded last fiscal year. The ministry also plans to increase the contribution of tourism to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to 3 percent from the current 2 percent.
According to the plan, the ministry has accorded high priority to infrastructure development , conservation of national heritage sites and promotion of home-stay and village tourism in line with its “Vision 2020”, a tourism perspective plan, which aims to bring in 2 million foreign tourists annually by 2020.
The ministry has also started work on developing specific and exclusive zones for intensive tourism development under its “18 Tourism Zones” plan. The annual development plan
has targeted to increase jobs in the travel and tourism sector to 175,000 from last year’s 160,000. It also aims to increase per day spending of tourists to $45 this fiscal year from last year’s $34.93 and increase international airlines’ connectivity to Nepal to 35 from the existing 26.
NAC to go for wet lease scheme
After Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) failed to get bidders for dry lease of two narrow-body Airbus A320-200 jets, it has decided to go for wet-lease scheme. NAC sources said the management is likely to propose the board for wet lease scheme next Saturday. “As per the initial proposal, the management plans leasing an aircraft on wet lease basis for a year,” the source said, adding after a year’s operation, NAC’s plan is to change wet-lease scheme to dry lease. A plane supplied with a full operating crew is wet lease, while just the plane is supplied under the dry lease scheme. On May 13, NAC had invited bids for dry lease of two narrow-body Airbus jets for five years to prevent a shutdown of its international service. It received four bidders, but none of them were able to fulfill the requirement as asked by NAC in its bid documents.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
