E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, JUL 19 - The government has allocated another Rs 120 million in this year’s budget to promote Nepal Tourism Year 2011 (NTY 2011) internationally even though the funds set aside last year remain unspent.

A sum of Rs 130 million had been earmarked in the previous budget to be spent on consumer publicity. However, the planned promo did not happen as the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA) shot it down saying the tendering process had been faulty. Ministry officials said that the tendering process had not fulfilled the requirements of the Public Procurement Act.

The MoTCA now has Rs 250 million to spend on international promotion. It plans to use the money for consumer publicity and also in different emerging markets through Nepal’s diplomatic missions.

“With the additional budget, we have planned to spend it in different countries through diplomatic missions apart from consumer publicity,” said MoTCA secretary Ganesh Raj Joshi. 

According to him, the ministry will review the last fiscal year’s budget for consumer publicity and utilize it on the basis of market demand. “We will also develop a bilateral tourism promotion strategy after holding consultations with the Finance and Foreign ministries.”

Six months into the NTY campaign, no publicity has been done in the international market. The NTY international promotion committee had planned to spend Rs 60 million in India, Rs 30 million in China and the rest in other source markets adopting the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) strategy. However, the plan fell apart because of erroneous tendering process.

Under the B2C strategy, the campaign had aimed to conduct publicity programmes through TV, newspapers, hoarding boards and online media. Tourism stakeholders had planned to promote Summer Spender and other tour packages under the consumer publicity programme in major Indian cities from mid-April targeting Indian holiday makers during the summer. Promotion in another key source market, China, was planned for June-July.

With the planned international promotion failing to get off the ground, the government has once again given continuity to conducting NTY as a campaign to fulfil the aim of establishing Nepal as the world’s model country in tourism.

NTY officials and tourism entrepreneurs admitted that it was too late to carry out promotion in India and China from where the country had targeted 365,000 visitors.

“We have been delayed, however, we can still develop a new promotional strategy under the soft adventure and honeymoon segment in the remaining six months of NTY,” said Nepal Tourism Board spokesperson Aditya Baral.

The new budget has also focused on the two giant emerging economies of neighbouring India and China.

Posted on: 2011-07-19 11:31

Post Your Comment

Please note that all the fields marked * are mandatory.
* Full Name
* Address
* Email Address
* Comment
* Captcha	Get another CAPTCHA code
Note:	Comments containing abusive words or slander shall not be published.