Kathmandu, November 2, 2018: Nepal government enlisted 97 new tourist destination as a part of the efforts to diversify the tourism within the country. The identification of the destinations was done by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation yesterday after the minister-level discussion.
The initial target was to identify 100 tourist destinations across the country to develop and promote them as destinations so that international tourists extend their stay while domestic tourists will have more places to visit. 97 news destinations are made public and 3 will be added later into the list.
619 destinations proposals were received from all over Nepal. Only projects of Gandaki and Province 3 with 17 destinations, followed by Province 1 with 16 destinations, Province 5 with 16 destinations, Karnali with 11 destinations and Far West with 11 destinations, and Province 2 with 9 destinations.
Joint secretary at the ministry, Ghanashyam Upadhyay shared, “The identification of new tourist spots will help to diversify our destination and tourism market while involving local units for development of the tourism market. We looked into various factors including tourism prospect, consulted study reports prepared by Nepal Tourism Board and sought views of experts to determine whether the tourism destination should be listed.”
The budget Rs 500 million has been allocated in the current fiscal year for the develop the necessary infrastructure. The destinations without the master plan will be having the master plan ready soon. Upadhyay added, “We know that the fund that we are giving is inadequate. But local governments can allocate more funds and also look for other resources.”
Visit Nepal Year 2020 has the target to bring over 2 million international tourists.
