Visit Lumbini Year 2012 to be launched today
KATHMANDU, JAN 14 -
The inauguration ceremony of Visit Lumbini Year 2012 (VLY 2012) is scheduled to be held at the Central Canal in Lumbini on Saturday.
President Ram Baran Yadav will launch VLY 2012 in the birthplace of Gautam Buddha spreading the message to the world to come together to create a peaceful society through Buddha’s peace message and to make the birthplace of Buddha a centre of global attraction.
The objective of VLY 2012 is to promote Nepal through the campaign, said Aditya Baral, spokesperson of the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB). VLY 2012 aims to attract one million visitors to Lumbini in southern Nepal. Lumbini is a holy ground for Buddhists from all over the world.
The campaign is also a continuation of the ongoing commitment towards tourism development. After NTY 2011, Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai had formally announced VLY from Lumbini on Dec 1, 2011. The cabinet declared 2012 as VLY on Oct 17, 2011 for the promotion and development of the Lumbini area.
The government is also launching Tourism Vision 2020 during the VLY inauguration that has set the goal of increasing annual international tourist arrivals to Nepal to two million by 2020 and augment economic opportunities and increase employment in the tourism sector to one million.
Acharya Karma Sangbo Sherpa, vice-chairman of the Lumbini Development Trust and joint coordinator of the national secretariat of VLY 2012, said the objective of the campaign was to invite the world to work towards creating a peaceful society through the Buddha’s peace message while the campaign also aims to publicise to the world that Buddha was born in Nepal.
The VLY 2012 national secretariat includes Minister for Culture Gopal Kiranti as a co-coordinator while secretaries from the ministries of Culture, Tourism, Home, and Foreign Affairs are members representing the government. Suraj Vaidya, president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), is leading the private sector.More than seven foreign ambassadors in Nepal have consented to attend the inauguration of VLY 2012 while around 70 foreign journalists have been invited to function. The NTB said that the “successful” completion of NTY had given two clear messages to the world — Nepal has come to a peaceful and stable situation after a decade-long political uncertainty and tourism has been unanimously regarded as a vehicle of economic transformation. VLY has been envisaged as a driver to position Nepal as a safe and happening destination in the world. According to the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA), Nepal is becoming a major spiritual tourism destination for East Asian travellers attracted by Lumbini. Although not much attention has been paid to marketing and promoting Buddhist sites, the number of religious visitors has been growing each year.
Nepal Tourism Statistics 2010 shows that the number of foreign pilgrims increased 96.6 percent in 2010 year on year. According to the statistics, pilgrimage is the number one objective of most of the tourists followed by trekking/mountaineering, holiday/pleasure and business. Of the 602,867 foreign visitors in 2010, 101,335 stated pilgrimage as their purpose of visit, 70,218 trekking/mountaineering and 63,082 holiday/pleasure.
Travel trade analysts attribute the increment in East Asian arrivals to their rising income levels, desire to visit the birthplace of the Buddha and better air connectivity.
Source: Kantipur
