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Nepal Tourism campaign, Visit Pokhara 07 is over. Let us analyze data, find some facts and and present them using charts. Past data, present and possibly prediction for future trends is what this post is all about. Enjoy some great tourism charts as you read on. Also bear with me, this is not a small post. If you don’t have time to read, please bookmark, then come back again.
Note: All data unless otherwise noted are by Air only. Nepal Government still doesn’t maintain data for tourists arrival by land.

What you will find here ?

• A view of the past
• Charts and Data
• A Look back on the Visit Pokhara 2007 Campaign
• Predictions and Suggestions for future campaigns
• If you have questions, please comment and I will respond as soon as possible. Thank you.

A. A View Of The Past

1.1 : Tourists Arrival Data from 1990 to 2005 – The Chart

1.2 The Numbers – Highlight

1.3 : Facts and Analysis

• Significant growth from 1997 to 2000
• Nightmare for tourism entrepreneurs in 2002. But what about 1990? 1990 can be among the first few beginning years of tourism business of Nepal. Although it has less number than other years, it can be counted as the first step towards a bigger market.
• Bad results for all other years mainly due to political instability in the country affecting tourism.
• Visit Pokhara 1998 (VP98) brought less tourists than the year 1999. VP 98 is often regarded as the failed tourism campaign of Nepal.
• Year 1999 brought nearly half a million tourists to the country; so the year 1999 is the the best year of the decade.
• In 1995, Nepal’s Communist Party Maoists was formed and it didn’t affect the tourism business until 2001. In fact, even after insurgency in 1995, it actually contributed more tourists than the previous year which itself is an amazing fact.
• In 2001, Maoists started ruling many remote parts of Nepal and violence escalated all over the country showing the negative sign in tourism, this can be seen on this year’s tourist arrival data.
• The increase in 2003 is due to cease-fire by Maoists and Nepal Army. Thus, it simply proves, peace means more tourism business for Nepal.
• 2004 did better than 2003, but then Nepal King took over in 2005, to that response , insurgence spread throughout Nepal. So blame on the King for decline of tourist in 2005 as compared to 2004.
• What the HECK happened in 2002, Nearly 40% drop in tourist arrival ? Well, it was a Year with rotten eggs in our plate; Parliament dissolved, fresh elections called in, state of emergency imposed, weakest interim government – made to run then another replaced by King. It was a year full of uncertainty but lots of action in it. Doctor, Lokendra Bahadur was chosen as a PM who only knew about Minds not Tourism (Laughing Out Loud!; LOL!) was replaced after kicking a guy named Sher Bahadur Deuba many did not digest the term PM for him too, he was called Puppet. In a nutshell, 2002 was a year of action and name calling for those who had the power and title and nothing more for the rest of the Nepalese. Sign of this ruthless and useless action shows in the above data.

1.4 Why many consider VP 08 was nothing more than a rally

Many who have observed the above table see that the tourism is
growing every year. This 1990 decade is an argument whether the VP08 was necessary at all. See every year there is 1% increase prior to previous year which includes even the Visit Pokhara 2008 year. (Please note: In the 1990 Decade, a total of 3 million and 647 Thousands Tourists visited Nepal by air alone.)

B. NOW – Visit Pokhara 2007 Campaign

2 Visit Pokhara 2007 Campaign
(Target, Achievement, Data, Chart and Actions Taken)

2.1 Target Set : 500,000 – Bring half a million tourists to visit Nepal

2.2 Achievement: 27.1% Growth as compared to last year.

Number of Tourists Arrived:

• 360,350 – By Air
• 139,651 – By Land (based on unofficial report) *
• 510,001 – Total (10% up Set Target)

** – Although there are no official records on data for tourists arriving by land, but the number is significant to be counted. “Bhairahawa, a city near to the Indian border receives more than 2,000 tourists every single weekend who come here for shopping and many depart upon shopping while others spend a few nights sleep in our country”, claims a news reported in his email interview with nepalvista team. As soon as the country is fully liked with database using Internet infrastructure, we soon be able to see full picture of tourists arrival in Nepal both by Air as well as by Air.

Thanks to all these countries for making this festival a grand success. Below are two pie charts, each for two different years.

2.2.1 Thanks to all these Continents for coming to Nepal.

The Data for 2006 and 2007

The Charts:

Chart 1 – Showing Contributions by Continents in 2007

Chart 2 – Showing Contributions by continents in 2006

2.3 Tourists Arrival for 2006 and 2007 Month-wise – Chart 1

2.4 Month wise for Year 2007 vs 2006
% Increase is (Year 2007 Minus 2006)

2.5 Facts and Analysis of above Data.

• Although the campaign begins in January, why didn’t the month Jan or Feb became Number ones in terms of growth instead of the month April? One reason could be that the world came to know about the festival later, and peace process in April and many International Airlines resumed their services to Nepal. And hence the month April 2007 breaks all records.
• What the heck happened in June? Is it because of bed weather ?
• When a festival is about to be finished, so shows the sign of decline. How can this be true? Have a look at the numbers for December. Why could it not compete with other months ?
• August, October and November are triplicates. Do you have some answers as to why ?
• Now this question is for the sake of fun, Look at the chart with two lines; which line looks like mount everest ? and why ?

2.6 Actions Taken For Campaign – a few images.

2.6.1 Shows and Exhibition Participation

• Various exhibitions, including Europe Travel Mart, India, Hongkong, Singapore
• India, Bhutan
• Many other countries brining folks from the Nepal Tourism Board as well as participating Nepali Travel Companies to promote Nepal as a destination for holiday and adventure activities. Their message were also about sending the favorable peace process of the country with aim to sell tourism products.

2.6.2 Use of Internet to Sell The Campaign

• Official site, welcomenepal.com and other tourism sites had announced the festivals of visit Pokhara 2007. Website offered an PDF file (often regarded as easy for designers, harder for users) on Visit Pokhara 2007 instead of offering interactive visual pleasing and useful information which could have been done to further add momentum to what this festival was all about.
• No Internet Advertising was done such as using Google Ad word, a tool for advertisers to sell their product.
• Organizations failed to promote using their sites. Now the new site, “Send Home a friend” which can be found on the official site of the Nepal Tourism Board is born. This could have been done a long time ago perhaps even before the campaign was started. We Nepalese haven’t learned not even the “P” of punctuality and we are ready to “P” – perform.
• Campaign didn’t get the required exposure on the Internet, nearly all All Nepali websites didn’t care; didn’t advertise about it; showing lack of relationship and coordination was there.
• NepalVista.com did launch a new blog (this one) with as an inspiration and for the love of Nepal, to sell the campaign by offering news, event highlights and even with tourism videos posted on youtube, which is one the most active and a site with high volume of users. Whether we actually helped send a few tourists to Nepal or not, but we enjoyed what we do with our little wallet.
• Other than the press releases announcing nothing but attendance of seminars held abroad, the campaign didn’t bring much message. Many Internet users failed to understand even the meaning of the title “Visit Pokhara 2007″ with questions like “What the heck is it ?”.. those were actual words coming out of foreigners. One fellow American friend to whom I told me, replied WTF ! I told him, it’s just a slogan, nothing more, please don’t get upset. Visit Nepal This year was my final answer.
• No Ads on foreign television such as CNN
• No adds on foreign news papers such as New York Times.
• In spite of all these, results of the campaign is satisfactory. Which in itself is an amazing achievement. See Chart Above 2.1 and Data 2.3 which excludes tourists arrivals by Land.

2.7 Expenditure of The Campaign

• The total cost spent on the Visit Pokhara 2007 campaign is unknown or has yet to be made public. Costs would include attending exhibitions abroad, food, lodging, and all other costs associated for web maintenance cost etc. Nepal Tourism Board’s members, the Nepali travel companies might be looking for some documentations on how the campaign went in terms of budget and perhaps making them public might be the right thing to do.

C. Future Trends and Suggestions

3.0 Ideas for Future Campaigns Not 4 NTB but for Every Nepali!

• When you brand something, sell it well. If fund is not enough, Divert some of the money that Nepal gets as donation from other countries. Use that money for maximum exposure of the compain; buy TV ADS in countries like USA, UK, Australia, and others.
• Its absolutely the right thing to do; brand Nepal again with another campaign. Pick a campaign title that should grasp viewers, readers and lives in their mind for long. More and more countries have decided to brand their tourism products annually. It shows our nationality, what we offer and how we can motivate others to come to our country.
• Australia uses “So Where The Bloody Hell Are you ?” I am very sure, anyone who even reads that line will stay on the site for long and will never ever forget such a powerful slogan. Would you ?
• “Time Is Now. The Place is Malaysia” by Malaysia
• Or it could be as simple as this “Destination Pakistan” by Pakistan
• or “Visit London” by London. To Find those sites, just type the name of the country followed by tourism at google.com
• Plan. Plan. Plan. Setup a new web site if required to sell your product well ahead in advance, not after you have started your campaign. That would be too late. I suggest creating a separate site by tourism board to simply promote the campaign alone.
• Use Internet Ads to boost traffic to your site. Allocate some of your campaign budget to Internet Advertising. Not a single AD was seen on our most popular news sites such as nepalnews.com and kantipuronline.com which receives both Nepalese as well as the “would” be travelers. Why couldn’t NTB get the support from our websites ?
• Use TV ADS specially CNN, BBC.
• Work with Nepali Lawyers to create a bill and pass it before your campaign. That would punish those who directly affect Tourism Business by their ruthless Bandhas, Strikes, Road-blockage, etc.
• Study. Study. Study. See how other countries are selling their tourism campaigns.
• Try improving the level of transparency of your organization; your actions and all associated costs with it, and make them public so you can expect respect, trust and support from all level.
• Make Full use of Nepalese associations scattered throughout the world. Motivate them, provide them the resource necessary so they too are involved in promoting the campaign. Also they have local knowledge that your people living in a fancy chair’s don’t!
• Make POLITICIANS accountable and get them involved in your campaign not just the people in the travel business.
• Any Ideas? Drop your comments for the benefit of all.

4.0 Suggested new Campaign Titles :

So the rumors are a title would be great to rip off the country’s cool situation. Come on people.. let’s do it. Let us brand Nepal again. But this time, we brand and we back it well.
Nepal; Once is not enough, Naturally Nepal aren’t enough, they are way too short and vague, well to me personally.

We need something that packs the punch.

I suggest that you get ideas from the youth, they surely will pick the that might work in this 21st century. Please don’t my ideas, I am getting older and my ideas are outdated!!
Here is one if you like. This was give to me by a 13 year old English Boy whom I told him about our Slogan and he said, “what, ha? again? once is never enough…” He wrote this for me…
“NEPAL IS JUST FOR YOU, SEE IT BEFORE YOUR FRIEND DOES!” I laughed at it. I don’t know if you will.

5.0 Prediction for Tourism Growth for 2008

More and more countries have decided, rightly, to pay attention to their national identity and hence branding its products is the right thing to do. Brand and make it unique, last long and easy to remember.

With peace in place, and a country-folks with sheer determination to keep the flame of peace alive, tourism shines for 2008. Unofficial records indicate that the tourism growth for the year 2008 will have a growth of 40% at least.
Now, for those of you – dear travelers, who haven’t packed your bags, start today.
You will be talking about Nepal before your friend does!!
And Remember, Once you visit Nepal, your Life will never be the same again!

Until Next time,

– Bhupendra
p.s. This post was born because of my love for Nepal. I always wish the best for everyone including many hard working people in our tourism organizations and companies.
Data source: Nepal Civil Aviation Authority. Charts Made using openoffice.org. calc. Namastay to you all from this Nepal lover.

(Just one quick note, please stay tuned, I have just received a beautiful poem from an American who wrote the poem for her love for Nepal. I will create a video soon and make that the next post. So better, Bookmark this blog because you can’t afford to miss that video!)

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