Make travel advices more precise or risk hindering recovery, urges trade

Jangchub Choeling Gompa, a Tibetan monastery in Pokhara, Nepal

Tourism leaders are urging governments to be geo-specific when issuing travel advisories to prevent affected destinations from being further hit.

Speaking at last week’s Himalayan Travel Mart in Kathmandu, PATA CEO Mario Hardy said that it is essential that specific areas are isolated when disaster strikes in a country, rather than the country-wide warnings that are often issued.

Jangchub Choeling Gompa, a Tibetan monastery in Pokhara, Nepal

He said: “Often millions of people are affected when the rest of the country is perfectly fine. I have an issue with that.”

Shiva Dhakal, managing director of Royal Mountain Travel, remarked: “Travel advisories have devastating effects, from causing livelihoods to suffer to travel insurance being issued. They need to be specific to prevent the entire industry from unnecessarily being affected.”

After the 2015 earthquake, a blanket travel warning on visiting Nepal was sent out, crippling the country’s recovery process and the tourism sector.

Of Nepal’s 78 districts, only 10 were affected by the earthquake, with many popular tourist destinations untouched.

Nepal Tourism Board CEO, Deepak Raj Joshi, said: “After the earthquake, people assumed it was the whole country. This was very damaging and we directly saw the impact it had on travel.”

Although the NTO approached many embassies to update the actual situation on the ground, many did not for several months. “This drastically slowed down the recovery,” he said.

Despite suffering no earthquake damage, businesses in popular Pokhara were badly impacted. Tejina Malla, assistant sales manager at Shangri-La Village Resort Pokhara, said: “We were not hit physically by the earthquake but we were hit very badly financially, and it’s only now starting to pick back up two years later.”

Joshi said Nepal’s slow recovery highlights the need for embassies and governments to work closely with tourism boards and tour operators on the ground to relay more accurate information.

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