Gearing up the tourism after effect of COVID-19
The outbreak of Coronavirus COVID-19 presents the tourism sector with a major and evolving challenge. Governments all around the world have put public health first and introduced full or partial restrictions on travel. With tourism suspended, the benefits the sector brings are under threat: millions of jobs could be lost, and progress made in the fields of equality and sustainable economic growth could be rolled back.
According to United Nation World Tourism Organization “Based on the latest developments (quarantine measures, travel bans & border closures in most of Europe, which represents 50% of international tourism, and in many countries of the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East), the evolutions in Asia and the Pacific and the patterns of previous crises (2003 SARS and 2009 global economic crisis), UNWTO estimates international tourist arrivals could decline by 20% to 30% in 2020”. Similarly, a research carried out by UNWTO in their new report, as of 6 April, 96% of all worldwide destinations have introduced travel restrictions in response to the pandemic. Around 90 destinations have completely or partially closed their borders to tourists, while a further 44 are closed to certain tourists depending on the country of origin. Therefore the government continuously review travel restrictions and ease or lift them as soon as it is safe to do so.
In the context of Nepal, Visit Nepal Year 2020 was in full swing with special events organized from Mt Everest Fashion Runway, Nepal Tatoo Convention, The Great Karnali Quest to World Trail Conference and Sustainable Summit Conference with an ambitious target to welcome 20 million tourists within this year. Starting up with excitement and expectation to make Visit Nepal 2020 campaign successful but due to the outbreak on Corona Virus the tourism sector marked as zero percentage where the whole world came to lockdown and all the airlines, service agencies, hotels and restaurants came to a position to shut down.
As per the analysis by the Asian Development Bank, the outbreak of this deadly disease will hit almost every sector of the Nepali economy, shaving up to 0.13 percent off the gross domestic product and rendering up to 15,880 people jobless.
On the one hand, it seems that it has given a chance to gear up tourism with a new plan and strategy. It has given me the chance to raise tourism in a new and properly planned way. Arriving tourists is not only called tourism, its time to change all the plans and policies and the pattern of the tourism sector. We can also learn some lessons with countries like Indonesia, Bangkok, Vietnam, Maldives, etc where there are good oceans to attract the tourist and with their plan and policies they are successful in making their countries a tourist hub. But in the context of Nepal, mother nature has given lots of natural gifts in each corner of Nepal. In every corner I think this small country has more potentiality to get tourist hub, that might be the world highest mountain Mount Everest or the religious Hub the birthplace of Lord Buddha or the eco-friendly environment in the hilly region as well as plain land of terai region where we can find many medicinal herbs or the ancient village all have their specialty and uniqueness. Thus, it’s time to change the policies and promote every sector, all religious place, each culture and tradition of society which leads to making support to the government in many aspects either that might be incoming of foreign currency, solving the problem of unemployment or that might be the best utilization of available resources. The major things to catch is the development of infrastructure in all parts of Nepal where local people can go to their best level to make their areas best and perfect for internal tourist as well as foreign. Tourism is a major job creator, especially for more vulnerable groups – women and youth. It is also a sector with a proven capacity to bounce back and multiply recovery to other sectors. Coordinated and strong mitigation and recovery plan to support the sector can generate massive returns across the whole economy and jobs.