Tourist spending dips to 16-yr low

Average tourist spending dropped to a 16-year low of $34.93 per day in 2012, according to the Tourism Ministry. The figure was at $39.90 in 2011.

The tourist spending has been calculated at the exchange rate of Rs 85.05 per $1. According to the ministry, Nepal received a record 803,092 tourists in 2012 (598,258 via air and 204,834 via surface route).

Travel trade entrepreneurs, however, said the statistics “are unnatural” and there are “a lot of lapses” on the modality of collecting spending data. “Everything is expensive here. From hotel rooms, airfares to recreational activities costs all have doubled,” said Suman Pandey, president of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), Nepal chapter. “In such a scenario, the ministry’s statistics do not hold any logical bases that the spending has dwindled.”

According to the Nepal Rastra Bank, the country earned Rs 30.70 billion from the travel sector in 2011-12, against Rs 24.61 billion in 2010-11. The annual foreign exchange earnings from tourism come from tourists’ airport service charge and revenue from hotels and travel agencies, among others. It also includes data from money changers.

Pandey said there used to be direct payment from tourists in the past, but the system has changed now with various transaction facilities available, such as online payment. This could be one of the factors for the actual tourist spending figures not reflected in the government statistics, he said.

Tourist spending has been declining since 2003, when the figure was at record $79.1 per day, the ministry statistics show. In 1996, when just 393,613 tourists visited Nepal, they spent $31.9 per day on an average.

Pavitra Kumar Karki, president of Nepal Association of Tours and Travel Agents, said tourist spending has not increased significantly, but it has also not dropped to the level the government statistics have shown.

Karki said the government and the private sector during the Nepal Tourism Year (NTY) 2011 had targeted to increase the per day spending of tourists to $50. “It was not a difficult task,” he said, adding since the announcement of the NTY campaign, hotels tariff, including others, has increased significantly.

Last year, tourist arrivals hit an all-time high although the average length of stay was shorter. The average length of stay of tourists slipped to 12.87 days in 2012 from 13.12 days in 2011. According to the ministry, 48 percent of the arrivals visited Nepal for travel and holidaymaking.

source: the kathmandu post,13 june 2013