Despite Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) claiming that foreign travel advice has been toned down in the last year, over-cautious warnings are still deterring tourists from visiting Nepal.
"The number of tourists could be much higher if not for the travel advice from foreign embassies," says Sarad Pradhan, NTB's media consultant. "Unforeseen things happen everywhere, everyday and Nepal is no different." He argues that there is no threat of terrorism in Nepal.
At least seven countries advise tourists not to travel to Nepal because it's too dangerous. "The US is always trying to link Nepali organisations with terrorism, but in my opinion this is not true. Like the Maoist Party, they're a political outfit, they're not a terrorist organisation," Pradhan says.
NTB recently wrote a letter to all western ambassadors in Nepal requesting them to review their travel advice and Nepal's Foreign Ministry was also copied in on the letter. Nepal's ambassador to the US, Shankar Sharma, briefed the US State Department last January in an attempt to sway them to review their advice, which suggests that Nepal is a dangerous country to travel in (see box).
As part of their commitment to NTY 2011, all political parties signed an agreement assuring NTB that they would not disrupt 2011 with any strikes or protests that will affect the safety of tourists. NTB is confident that this agreement will not be broken. "We believe the parties will stick to their word," Pradhan says. Another move by NTB was to put a crisis management and crisis tourism unit in place to further protect travellers in the event of any threat to tourism.
Most of the information that the US embassy uses to determine the security situation is drawn from public sources, including the media and police reports. The US councillor for public affairs, Terry J White, says the US Embassy has an obligation to provide the American people with fact-based information. "This information is gathered, sifted and distilled into what we think would be useful to our constituents," White says.