Nepal Tourism Year 2011 and promotion of Buddha's Birthplace Lumbini

By Sujan Neupane

Sending the message of global peace and brotherhood around the world a special year for the tourism in Nepal isaiming a record number of global visitors to the country of the Mt. Everest and the Lord Buddha. Nepal, a country with the small geographic area  but very rich and proud of it's diverse range of social, cultural, religious, economical, geographical and historical values, is hosting Visit Nepal 2011 campaign to offer very warm hospitality to it's guests from all over the world to let them experience the heaven.

As we are the proud citizens of a proud nation where the world famous Lord Buddha was born we are promoting The Buddha and his birthplace organising different activities globally. Government, tourism industry, media and individuals are doing their best to invite the Buddhist pilgrims and peace lovers from the different part of the world. After end of a decade long insurgency in the country the whole Nepali tourism industry is recovering the loss of it's lovers and the holy land Lumbini is also getting positive response from the peace loving people and pilgrims from around the globe. 

The aim of lifting many citizens' life out of poverty sounds positive as Nepal got a record number of 448,769 foreign tourists in 2010 which was 18.5% more than the figure of 2009 according to the Nepal Tourism Board.

An official data by Lumbini Development Trust shows, Lumbini alone got 4,26,250 Nepalese and 65,150 Indian visitors in 2010, whereas 99,508 was the number of the travellers from other 94 countries in 2010.The growth of the number of the tourists was positive with 20.69% increment compared to previous year. The data shows that we need to have special focus on the neighbouring countries India and China as they have big population and Buddhist community. The countries having big Buddhist population such as Srilanka, Thailand, Myanmar, South Korea, Vietnam and Japan who contributed 37645, 22833, 5701, 5469, 2317 and 2151  visitors respectively are equally important.

Comparing to Other holy cities for different religions such as Mecca, Medina, and Vatican City, the figure of the number of visitors to the holy land of Buddhism which has 376 million followers is still not in a satisfying level. Mecca alone gets around 13 million pilgrims and visitors every year while more than 4 million people make their way to the Vatican City each year. These are just some of the top examples who are getting billions of dollars from outside the country.

Only organising some programs in different places and running campaigns are not enough to achieve the goals to attract millions of people and billions of dollars from the tourists and pilgrims from other countries. Modern infrastructures and facilities are highly important issues for betterment the condition of our tourism industry. Construction of an international airport in Lumbini to be connected to different countries and cities having good social, cultural and religious relationship specially the Buddhist countries could be the major milestone for long term development of tourism industry in Nepal. Development of the national tourism public awareness strategy and the government's commitment for a long term peace and security can make Lumbini Nepal one of the best tourist destinations in the world.