Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ramesh Nath Pandey, has said that negative coverage of Nepal in media has affected the tourism industry of the country.

He said this while inaugurating the Travel Media Workshop for South Asia Sub-regional Travel Writers jointly organised by Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) in association with World Tourism Organization in Kathmandu Friday. Travel writers from Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan are participating in the workshop.

Highlighting the importance of information as power, minister Pandey said that tourism industry is vulnerable to external factors. “We witnessed a sharp downturn in tourist flows after 9/11. Information has a great role play to make or break the future of this industry,” he said. “Negative depiction of positive event has a direct fallout on the prospects of development. We all suffer from the negative publicity of our countries by powerful international media that bring adverse consequences to us,” he stated.

He reiterated government’s commitment to extend full support to the private sector in the promotion of tourism.

Foreign Minister Ramesh Nath Pandey shaking hands with Thondrup, vice-chairman of the,…

Meanwhile, earlier in the morning at his residence, Pandey hosted the visiting vice-chairman of the People’s Political Consultative Conference of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China, Thondrup.

According to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the two sides expressed happiness over the long history and cooperative relationship between Nepal and the People’s Republic of China, and highlighted the need for building on the existing friendly relations between the two countries for the benefit of future generations.

Expressing satisfaction over the enthusiastic celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Nepal and China, they underlined that the railway linkage between Tibet and mainland China would help in Nepal’s development.

Thondrup is on an official visit to Nepal, leading a youth delegation of the Tibet autonomous Region of China. The delegation is leaving for Lhasa on 27 August, it is stated.