Coronavirus effect : Visit Nepal 2020 campaign cancelled
Travel Biz News —
Kathmandu: Nepal government has formally cancelled the Visit Nepal Year 2020 campaign due to outbreak of coronavirus in more than 203 countries and territories.
Earlier, the high-level committee for the control and prevention of COVID-19 had decided to halt the campaign until April.
The government aimed to welcome two million tourists in the country during the Visit Nepal Year in 2020.
“As per the government decision of March 22, Visit Nepal Year 2020 campaign has been canceled due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. VNY Secretariat will be dissolved from April 13,” Secretary at the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Kedar Bahadur Adhikari said.
The VNY 2020 campaign was planned to revitalize Nepal’s tourism industry after the 2015 earthquakes affected the tourism sector badly.
Nepal launched Visit Nepal Year 2020 on January 1 and organized international inauguration programs in more than 100 countries across the world.
A total of 1.19 million tourists visited Nepal in 2019 via air and land route while in 2018 a total of 1.17 million tourists visited Nepal.
A total of 209,611 Indian tourists and 169,543 Chinese tourists visited Nepal in 2019 , whereas 93,196 tourists from United States , 61,139 tourists from United Kingdom and 55,869 tourists from Sri Lanka visited Nepal in 2019.
Nepal government plans to observe decade of 2020-2030 as Nepal Tourism Decade with a focus to develop infrastructure and attract a large number of tourists from different parts of the world .
March 31 , 2020
