May 27: Tourism stakeholders have stated that they are not much impressed by the policies and programmes made public by the government for the upcoming fiscal year. They said that there is no concrete policy for the tourism sector, which was most affected by the Covid-19 and has been clawing back to normalcy.

The government, which made the policies and programmes public on Tuesday, is releasing the budget for the next fiscal year on May 29. Binayak Shah, senior vice president of the Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN), shared that the budget is expected to have a concrete and landmark programme for tourism. "The tourism sector is still not in a normal state," Shah said.

However, he said that since the budget will come in a few days, we will have to wait and see what kind of programmes will be included in it. The ' Visit Nepal 2020' campaign announced by the government in 2020 was postponed but never implemented. In the context that the tourism year was postponed due to Covid-19, it is necessary to re-announce such big events, said Shah. He stressed that the government should announce a big event for the revival of tourism in the new budget.

"Preparations for the tourism year can still be made active," Shah said. "Let's announce a big event in the budget, let's give half a year to prepare."

Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nepal Tourism Board Deepak Raj Joshi, who is also a founding member of the World Tourism Network, has a similar view. He also said that a big event is needed to revive the tourism sector and give impetus to it. Joshi said that the upcoming budget should announce a big program like the postponed Visit Nepal Year 2020 so that it can be implemented within a year and a half.

Stating that the tourism sector is not a business that can be run on its own, he said that it can only move forward by linking tourism in a multi-faceted way.