27th September — World Tourism Day

2017  World Tourism Day Theme: “Sustainable Tourism – a Tool for Development"

Travel is defined as the movement from one place to another for certain period of time. Every beings in the earth travel for a variety of reasons like for pleasure, knowledge, answers, freedom or survival.

The world is big enough for us and there are several destinations around it which all dreamt to see once in our lifetime. As we are living in our new complexly structured world, travel has become a norm these days and it’s true!

Over the past six decades, tourism has radically expanded and became one of the major economic sectors of the world. With the growth of new technologies and online system, travel has never been so easy. What you need is a little bit of money or sometimes just a flight tickets!

As per the statistics, international from early 1950’s till today’s date, the growth of international tourist’s arrivals around the globe has jumped almost by almost 50% i.e. 25 million in 1950’s compared to 1.2 billion in 2015.

The annual growth of tourism is estimated to be an average of 3.3% until 2030. In 2016, travel and tourism generated USD 7.6 trillion (10.2% of Global GDP) and 292 million employment, equivalent to 1 in 10 jobs in the global economy. The outlook for tourism in 2016 remains robust and expected to accelerate in following years.

"2017 has been appointed The International Year of Sustainable Tourism by the UN as a unique opportunity to advance the contribution of the tourism sector to the three pillars of sustainability – economic, social and environmental while raising awareness of the true dimensions of a sector which is often undervalued”

—  UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai

World Tourism Day was first started in 1979 and celebrated for the first time in 27th September of 1980. Like any other year, there are conferences, seminars, and speeches to spread out the opportunities of tourism on various social, economic and environmental aspects. In this year 2017, Qatar was officially elected as host countries for World Tourism Day by United Nations World Tourism Organization.

Tourism plays a key role for the betterment of every social, economic, cultural, political and environmental aspect of the developing countries. Growing international travel has somehow joined the people living in the various parts of the world and improvises the understanding of people and a different civilization. Connecting with each other!

2017 World Tourism Day focuses on the sustainability of the resources, conservation of the environment, improvement of general lifestyle, and spreading out the positive implications of the sustainable tourism. 

In last 10 years, the themes of World Tourism Day has been centered for the protection of bio-diversity, cross culture linking, water and sustainable energy, community development and issues like climate change and global warming.

Tourism is not limited as an affair to engage in leisure or exciting adventure activities, but has grown into a versatile sector with creation of alternative and merging tourism such as “Green Tourism”, “Eco-Tourism”, “Agro-Tourism”, “Voluntourism”, “Countercultural tourism” and few others, adapted to the particular needs and preferences of the tourists.  

Tourism in Nepal

On 25th September, two days before the actual Tourism Day, a program was held in the premises of Nepal Tourism Board to celebrate the day with speech and awards for the recognition of contributions made by hotel & accommodation, travel and trekking agencies and airlines companies.

There are several events, rally program and conference are held by tourism organizations across the country commemorating 38th World Tourism Day. The major focus to promote tourism is bringing out the new ideas and proper planning in local level and reach out to the international market with offers and services.

Tourism is one of the major economic sources for Nepalese people. Life has been difficult since the last catastrophic earthquake in 2015, however it is getting better with a 7.5% projection of economic growth with many reconstruction underway.  At least 0.73 million foreign tourists visited Nepal in 2016 which is 24% increment as compared to 2015. 

Nepal has been known as the A Paradise on Earth and every years thousands of travelers visit Nepal to witness the grandeur of nature, landscapes, culture and people. The arrivals of tourist have increased significantly in the past year and hope to mark one million by the end of this year. 

Nepal has a huge potential for tourism entrepreneurship; next move should be supporting infrastructure that enables tourism.  

—  Tweeted by Alaina B. Teplitz (US Ambassador to Nepal)

"Together for Tourism"