Tourism entrepreneurs and experts have welcomed launching of ‘New Tourism Brand’ by Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) but were quite critical of the Board’s ambitious plan to attract additional 300,000 tourists in a year.

Talking to Nepalnews Tuesday, tourism entrepreneur Karma Shakya said the branding was appropriate and timely. He said that despite the deepening conflict, the branding would help expand the tourism industry.

Time has come that the NTB and tourism entrepreneurs should seek alternatives of mountain tourism in Nepal, Shakya said. Trekking, bungy jumping, boating, rafting, bird watching, are a few to name the immense potentiality of Nepal’s adventure tourism, he added.

Shakya further said that the branding would help to build passion of tourism among the travelers of Nepal, adding, the inculcated passion for adventure in Nepal, proclaimed to one of the top travel destination in the world, would never be erased from the hearts from visitors. Visiting Nepal once would not be enough for them, he stressed.

President of Nepal Mountaineering Federation (NMF) Tek Chandra Pokhrel said the flagging tourism industry thanks to political instability in the country would get revived to some extent by the branding. He, however, criticized the NTB for the delay of branding Nepal. “But, unless political stability is maintained in the country, we may not be able to meet our expectation,” Pokhrel added.

He said that the new branding should be able to convince the visitors that political turmoil in Nepal has not affected the tourists visiting here.

Tek Bahadur Dangi, Chief Executive Officer of the NTB said the brand would be instrumental in increasing the number of tourists to Nepal up by 300,000.

“Prior to this campaign, we were solely dependant on individual overseas tour operators to promote Nepal, but we will now all be working together in a concerted, focused and centralized effort to penetrate the new segment of consumer market that also has great potential,” Dangi added.

The NTB recently launched the ‘New Tourism Brand’ with the slogan ‘Naturally Nepal, Once Is Not Enough’ incorporating the entire spectrum of tourism products/services, which provides leeway to Nepal to promote and market its tourism products in a complete package. The brand will be adopted by all travel trade sectors and other concerned agencies that market Nepal nationally or internationally.

The NTB will be investing around Rs 100 million in tourism promotional campaigns through this brand. It was developed by Indian social infrastructure agency Alchemy, which has plans to reinvent Nepal’s diversity, modernity and cultural heritage.