Nepal's Tourism; The road to recovery.
Nepal’s
Tourism: The road to recovery.
There is a
reason I have refrained from calling this ‘The long road to recovery’.
That being, the time frame for the recovery of our industry is within our own
control, once the ground stops shaking. Once, we the local population, are
confident about not looking at one another in panic, wondering if another
aftershock has hit and we are confident about not sleeping in ground floor
rooms to be able to make an early exit, should the next aftershock be bigger
than the last. Then our moment will have come and we will be in a position to
say to the world “Come to Nepal!”
When that
time comes, and it will come faster than we can imagine, then we need to move
fast, very fast. In fact, we will need to move faster than we would have moved
if the next earthquake did, indeed hit! To move quickly when an anticipated
event occurs in the future, we need to have a well thought out plan in place
that allows us to leverage our available resources to effectively exploit and
market our competitive and comparative advantages.
A look at
our available resources then. Our natural resources are largely intact. The mountains
are still standing, beautiful as ever; our rivers are still gushing with waters
and our jungles are still teeming with wildlife. So far, so good. Our man made
resources and heritage have been battered but, all of them have not been turned
to dust. The major sites of touristic interest are being cleaned up, a date,
the 15th of June is being floated as being the day when these will
be cleared, cleaned and opened to public viewing, although in some cases, restricted
public viewing. This too is good. Then the last resource we need are marketing funds
and these funds, limited as they have always been are, by large measure,
available at the NTB, for now. Good.
Then, let’s
look at our competitive advantages. In the case of leisure tourism our hotels
are still standing and able to serve our much anticipated guests, our guides
are some of the most educated in the region and possess the required
specialties, and our transport infrastructure, while the weakest link in the chain,
is still intact. We check out relatively well on competitive advantages in the leisure
sector. The Nepali travel trade literally wrote the book on adventure travel
and we can safely say that all of our competitive advantages in this sector are
second to none in the world. Period.
That brings
us to our comparative advantages. We still have the tallest mountains, the
fastest rivers, unbeatable climate, successfully conserved UNESCO listed World
Heritage Sites, a living culture going back thousands of years, some of the
best preserved National Parks, that gem of Lumbini where the Buddha was born
and Janakpur awaiting it’s moment in the sun and myriad other things that no
other country can compete with all at once, in a single package. In my opinion
we are good to go.
But go
where? You might ask and that is THE plan that must be made ready. Now. In
fact, it should have been ready yesterday!
This short-term
plan must have, at least the following components:
- A well-grounded and truth evincing safety assurance component. We must absolutely be able to guarantee that our destination is as safe as anywhere else in the world. This has to be backed by solid action, action that others can see and verify on the ground.
- A well thought out and effective recovery communication process to convey the above message. What do we want the world to hear from us? Who is going to say it? From what platform will it be said? And how loudly are we going to shout it? This will ensure the correct message goes out in a single voice.
- A short term marketing plan to go with the communication process. Which markets are we going to crack first, second, third and so on? India? China? Western Europe? Japan? The US? This will ensure that our marketing dollars are not wasted in the wrong markets.
- Be prepared to raise the bar on our own competitive advantages. We must strive to make our services better than before, our hotels more hospitable, our guides better trained, our cars and buses and roads newer and more modern and our cities and countryside more habitable and tourist friendly. So that, when the tourists and those that supply the tourists do come, they will know that the game has changed here. For the better. And then, they will do our marketing work for us, in large measure, at their expense. Leaving us free to formulate a plan for the medium term.
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