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Pokhara, with its heavenly scenery and peace, is a bliss for tourists. And it has over the years been developed as a convenient base for adventure activities in and around the Annapurna Range. But this year has been a disaster, like everywhere else.

Tourism, naturally, has been hit hard by the pandemic. Travelling is last thing on people's mind. And for countries like us banking on tourism as one of the pillars of economic development, this is a huge setback.

The year had started with the launch of Visit Nepal 2020 as a government flagship program. There were high hopes that it would help undo the effects of the 2015 earthquake. But right from the start, the indicators were not good.

When then Tourism Minister, Yogesh Bhattrai, inaugurated the campaign’s marketing in Australia in the midst of one of the greatest wildfires in that country's history, we could guess the execution was going to be messy and mindless. On top of that, the program itself was held at a public place without the permission of city authorities, causing much embarrassment for the rookie minister.

Then Covid struck. The same minister was on his toes again, this time with a plan to declare Nepal a 'Corona Free Country', and initiate a new phenomenon: ‘Shelter Tourism based on Refuge from Epidemic’.

As ridiculous as the idea was, it was also an indication of how our leaders think—mostly myopically or, at best, under the influence of a small echo-chamber of advisors whose only expertise is political bickering.

As the pandemic unrolled itself, it engulfed mighty plans and shattered many dreams. The beginning of Covid-19 vaccine program in many European countries had given a glimmer of hope. We expected visitors from the European and American markets. But then the new Covid strain changed the game again.

Bijay Amartya, who has been involved in the tourism business for a long time, says: “The new Covid-19 virus strain and countries’ restrictions in the form of flight bans could be a major blow to the global tourism industry. Nepali tourism industry was expecting some positive announcement from the government on opening on-arrival visa facilities and more international flights from the New Year. Things, apparently, won’t be so straightforward. ”

The main tourist season in Nepal is between September and March. With the season opening on a low, all hopes were pinned on the vaccinations to balance the 2021 season. But now the vaccinations too are doubtful.

One would expect the government to act swiftly to mitigate job losses and step up in every possible way to ease the hardships. But Nepal's politicians instead brought in a bigger disaster. With the parliament dissolved, all investors, including in the tourism sector, are jittery. The arrivals this year have already reached a new low, comparable to that of pre-1996 conflict era.

However, there is a new way to look at the reality that could change how tourism works in Nepal forever. Pokhara saw a surge in domestic tourism during this festive season despite the pandemic, giving new hope and window of opportunity for a paradigm shift.

Florence Karki, the Co-founder and General Manager of The Cliff, Kusma, an extreme adventure activities resort that began operations October this year, says: “We were skeptical about the opening. But it had already been seven years since we started working on this, and waiting any longer was not an option. We have been overwhelmed by the response. Nepali travelers, with their new purchasing power, can upturn how the tourism industry operates.”

But as operators and investors speak from insight and wisdom they have garnered after much pain, the ones who decide on these matters are clueless. And recently, the previous health minister who was ridiculed for his work, has now been given the responsibility of the tourism ministry. The ministry has mostly been a silent spectator on matters that concern tourism.

In a Facebook Group named Nepal Tourism Think Tank, many participants expressed befuddlement as to why foreigners coming from other countries have to spend seven days in quarantine despite their PCR negative status while the same rule doesn't apply for Indians even though India is perhaps the worse-affected country in the world.

A similar question has confused many foreigners in Nepal for years: why do they have to pay almost three times for domestic flights to what is charged of Nepali and Indian citizens?

So, apart from the pandemic, we clearly see problems like misplaced priorities, policy disorientation and government inaction. And now, the question that the people from the industry are asking is: How are we going to survive?

But, Marcus Cotton, who has been involved in the industry for over three decades, and is currently the CEO of Tiger Mountain Resort, Pokhara shows us that there is a flip side to it too: “I have less sympathy with well-established tourism businesses who cried foul and immediately laid off all staff. These companies should have had at least six months of contingency funding for a crisis. But for new businesses, this obviously wasn’t an option.”

The blame game between industry operatives and government agencies will lead us nowhere. The onus to tackle this is a shared one.

A few things are clear enough. Multiple Nepal Communist Party sources confirm that Prime Minister KP Oli has been desperately trying to mend his strained ties with the Indian establishment and the BJP leadership. Informal envoys have been deputed to New Delhi to explore ways to restore his credibility with the Indians. The Chinese were set on preserving the ruling party’s unity—even if it entailed requesting Oli to give up one of his two executive posts. Oli wasn’t prepared to do so. He instead split his party and sought India’s help to save his twin chairs. 

New Delhi was hesitant at Oli’s overtures. Indian political leaders and bureaucrats who had once closely worked with him had not forgotten the blockade-time ‘betrayal’. Back then, the communist prime minister had conveniently ditched his old allegiance with India and pushed measures to establish China as India’s counterweight. This popular nationalist stand helped him become prime minister for the second time. 

So the Indian babus were wary this time. But they also saw an opportunity. After the 2015-16 blockade, China had steadily gained ground in Kathmandu at India’s expense, and New Delhi had been scrambling for a response. India realized that so long as the NCP—with its budding fraternal ties with the Chinese Communist Party—remained intact, things would be hard for India. Also acutely aware of China’s reasons for backing NCP unity, India decided to play it cook with Oli’s party-split efforts. 

Oli could not have risked it all without India’s backing. One simple way to guess which foreign actor was involved in the NCP split, suggested a retired PMO official with vast experience of dealing with foreign actors, is to ask who benefitted most from it. “The modus operandi is classic India, which will again get to play in the unstable polity,” he said.  

The strongest ‘pro-China’ force now out of the picture, most coverage of Oli’s parliament dissolution in Indian media portrayed the move as a strategic victory for their country.

The contrasting Chinese reaction can be gauged by a Dec 25 Global Times op-ed. “The coordinative role played by China”—supposedly in bringing the NCP together and later to keep it intact—“should not be viewed as interference in Nepal's internal politics,” it said. The same op-ed chastised the Indian media which “often provoke China-Nepal relations, but this will not send big waves. Politicians in Nepal well understand the importance of cooperating with China.”

Bluster aside, China has definitely lost its trusted ‘permanent friend’ in Nepal. The Chinese had looked to cultivate such an all-weather friend in their bid to crimp India’s strategic space in Nepal, as a part of their new push against the Indians in South Asia. But with the NCP behemoth gone, Oli back in India’s corner, and Nepali Congress increasingly seen in Beijing as doing India’s bidding, China appears short of options. It’s now lobbying for the parliament’s reinstatement, including with President Bhandari. (Yes, the dragon’s started to bare its fangs.)  

Along with India, aging Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba is the other big winner of the communist split. With Oli’s help, Deuba will now look to worm his way back to the center of Nepali politics. In internal party deliberations following the NCP breakup, Deuba has stood vehemently against protesting Oli’s parliament dissolution. Perhaps he already has a tacit understanding with Oli to forge an electoral alliance and, in the most favorable case, even dreams of reclaiming the prime minister’s chair. The Supreme Court judgement, whichever way it goes, won’t much affect this calculus. Deuba has always enjoyed New Delhi’s blessings. The political comeback of this darling of the westerners will also please the Americans.

…and what have you done. Another year over. A new one just begun. 

Sang John Lennon in 1971. Still a classic at Christmas, this song takes on a new meaning this year. So what have we done? In a word—nothing. I should have been telling you about all the great Christmas markets, Christmas carol concerts and events going on around town. But I’m not. Because there aren’t any. Not just none in Kathmandu but pretty much none around the world.

Yes, there has been a couple of small markets, announcing themselves as Christmas ones, but the overall spirit is missing for me. No Summit Hotel, or larger Christmas markets taking place for obvious reasons. No Kathmandu Chorale concert, no gluhwein courtesy of the Germans, no Christmas mince pies courtesy of the British, no Christmas lunch up near Shivapuri with the Culture Studies Group, and no Kathmandu International Film Festival (KIMFF) except virtually. Oddly, KIMFF, always held in December, has been part of my Christmas celebrations for near on 18 years now. No, nothing happening, except a few hotels and restaurants hosting lunches and dinners with a Christmas theme.

I hope you have fun. The near and the dear ones. The old and the young. Continues Lennon.  Much of Europe has pretty much cancelled Christmas. The idea being keeping the old and young apart. Even within a family bubble, only so many people can gather in one household.  In Scotland, my mother is in my sister’s family bubble because she lives alone. But even she couldn’t visit for the two weeks prior to Christmas as my nephew is quarantining at home after returning from university. 

So what have we done? This year has been so hard on so many. We started it with optimism.  Visit Nepal 2020 would bring many tourists, benefitting those within the industry and many more indirectly. I visited Europe for the first time in more than 20 years—and it might be another 20 since those of us holding British passports have given over, from 1 January 2021, our right to work and visit Europe without the visa red-tape nonsense. #brexitmadness   

So that was January 2020. By February we were taking a closer look at China and Italy and keeping our global fingers crossed. Somewhere in March we entered a long, and very dark tunnel. With vaccines now being produced and distributed there may be a tiny light at the end of this tunnel. But we shouldn’t celebrate quite yet. This is going to take time.

The whole world is suffering from Covid-fatigue but here in Nepal it seems all caution has been thrown to the wind. The average person no longer fears this virus, nor appears to have any civic responsibility towards their neighbors, friends or even family. And, I said this a couple of months ago too, it’s not just the ones who earn their living on a daily basis who are taking risks. It’s those who, we would presume, have enough in the coffers to see them through these dark days. With plenty to spare. Greed at every level seems to win out every time. And here I am talking about the whole world, not just Nepal.  

Going back to Lennon’s song, like him, I wish you: A very merry Christmas. And a Happy New Year. Let’s hope it’s a good one. Without any fear.

The ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) leaders have sabotaged this country’s future again. The new political turmoil will inflict a big economic cost and hold economic development back. The government had set a target of graduating from the list of least developed countries in 2022, and becoming a mid-income country by 2030. Both goals have become unachievable. The economy that was already suffering due to the pandemic has been pulled into further uncertainty with the parliament’s dissolution. We no longer have a conducive environment to be a vibrant economy by achieving double-digit growth over the course of the next decade.

The government formed on the back of a two-thirds parliamentary majority has failed to deliver on its electoral promises. People voted for prosperity and development that was projected as a byproduct of political stability. Although the link between political stability and economic development is unclear, people voted in the general elections to achieve both: or more specifically, to achieve prosperity by the way of political stability. This process has been halted and Nepal will now struggle to achieve economic sustainability and development.

The country has been trying to become a moderately developed country by following the prescription of development partners without working out whether the prescription actually made sense in our context. Even far-left political parties in Nepal seem willing to implement the Washington Consensus. Yet the country has been unable to make much progress in utilizing available resources. It is often forgotten that development is achieved based on effective implementation of policies and programs and not what model a country adopts.

One of the projections, especially after the promulgation of new constitution in 2015, was that Nepal would also join the league of Asian countries that have been progressing regardless of their political frameworks. But it is worth asking: In which area has Nepal progressed in the three years since the formation of the Oli government? As 2020 comes to a close and the world starts inoculating itself against Covid-19, Nepal has entered a new and needless political battle. No one is sure if federalism, considered a means for inclusive economic development, can be sustained. The new constitution that lays out the foundation for federal administrative system has been repeatedly undermined by the major political parties as well as the government. Against this backdrop, its institutionalization is up in the air.

The fundamental question is: Can Nepal overcome this chaos to continue on the path of economic development over the next one decade? Recent political mess complicates this journey. Even if the process continues, it will be tall order to achieve the anticipated double-digit growth that would have helped Nepal be a mid-income country by 2030. Setting up new goals will take time and by then it may be too late. The interest of our neighbors could shift elsewhere and Nepal could be left behind in the region.

What can we do to help the economy recover from the pandemic’s impact and the political chaos? The least Nepal can do at this time is to let the bureaucracy work unhindered to take forward the country’s economic agendas. Yet that too is unlikely as our bureaucracy and state apparatus are thoroughly politicized.

When Nepal emerges from this chaos, the dynamics of economic development would have vastly evolved in the post-covid world. One could argue that there would still a government in place to carry forward economic agendas. But then this government would be consumed by petty politics and have no time for vital economic issues and delivery. This missing focus on economic development in turn will imperil the country’s future.