Kathmandu, Feb 8 - A leading Asian academician has said that Asia has to produce the human resource required to lead the world tourism market. Speaking at a daylong workshop organized in the capital yesterday (Feb 7), Prof Dr Kaye Chon, Dean of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said Asia has to take up the new responsibility as this century belongs to Asia. 

 “The balance of economic power has shifted from Europe and America to Asia; and China is leading that in Asia,” said Prof Chon, “Asia’s tourism industry, too, should take a lead in this transformation.” The workshop, titled ‘Human Resource Development in Tourism Industry’, was organised by PATA Nepal Chapter at GATE College in Kathmandu.

Stating that the number of Asian tourists travelling to different countries around the world has been rising, Prof Chon said Asia itself is a huge market as 80 percent of the tourists of Asia are from the same continent.

“Now, the ‘rainbow tourism’ led by Asian tourists is growing in the whole world. This is a concept of diversity in tourists in terms of colour, features and languages,” said Chon.

He added that though the American and European tourists formed a majority of tourists visiting the Asian countries in the past, now the number of tourists from China, India and other Asian countries is rising sharply.

“As the West was a major source of tourists for this area in the past, the high-level managers of our hotels would be westerners. But now we have started producing our own competent human resource required by the hospitality industry. The local human resource has to take the leadership now,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, chief executive officer of Nepal Tourism Board, Deepak Raj Joshi said  China and India are not just the two most populous countries of the world but also huge markets for Nepali tourism.

Similarly, PATA Nepal Chapter President Suman Pandey said Nepal needs to go ahead adopting a special strategy to revive its tourism industry which has been badly hit by the April 2015 earthquakes and India’s unofficial blockade.

Likewise, CEO of GATE College, Khem Lakai said as tourism played a major role in Nepal’s economy, revival of the tourism industry meant the revival of the whole economy.

The workshop was attended by 200 students from nine different hotel management colleges and other stakeholders of the tourism industry.