Nepal News - Nepal Magic

Nepal Safe Destination, Says UK Journos

Kathmandu, June 16

Nepalese tourism entrepreneurs and associations poured concern over negative travel advisory during a press meet with journalists from the United Kingdom, Monday.

Nepal Tourism Board in association with Hotel Association Nepal and Gulf Air had invited two journalists from UK on a Familiarisation (FAM) Tour to Nepal from 11- 17 June in an effort to promote Nepal as a tourist destination in the international media.

Jyoti Adhikari, president of Trekking Agents Association Nepal (TAAN), during the meet informed the British journalists about how negative travel advisory had been affecting tourism in Nepal and said that travel advisories did go against Nepal’s promotional efforts. “We work so hard to promote our destinations but a single negative word from the international media and travel advisories just flushes our work down the drain,” he said.

Padraic Flanagan, Deputy News Editor, Daily Express and Raymond Whittaker, Foreign Editor, Independent stated that though they were here on a short visit they still felt that they had seen enough to know why people would want to visit Nepal. “There is a lot more to see in Nepal than just the mountains and we feel that the people here are very warm and helpful,” they said and added that they would remind people that Nepal is a safe destination to visit. “As far as travel advisories are concerned we really cannot do much to help since that is a political issue”.

While answering queries on how their visit here was and if they would help to spread a positive message about tourism in Nepal, they said that they would write the truth about their experiences here. “We will spread the truth about Nepal and the fact that we felt completely safe here,” said Flanagan.” Nepal is just as good as South Africa or Brazil or any other country,” said Whitaker.
According to a representative of Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), the best way to counter negative advisory was to increase the number of tourists to Nepal.

Source : http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np