Foreign tourists return to Sauraha

Last week, a group of foreign tourists visited the Park Safari Hotel in Sauraha. 

Hotel owners in the area say they are rejoiced to see foreigners return to Sauraha after a long time. Tourist arrivals had almost stopped for two consecutive years. 

The group, which comprised around 20 tourists from South Asian and European countries, brough given some rays of hope to the Covid-19-affected local businesses, they say. 

“Amid the doom and gloom in the tourism business, we see the return of tourists as a positive step,” says Mahesh Khanal, manager at Park Safari.

When Nepal went into lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, tourism, the mainstay of the town located close to the Chitwan National Park, was severely affected. While hundreds of hotels and resorts shut, thousands were left unemployed facing an uncertain future as the pandemic’s effects spread across the world. 

But with the vaccination drive picking up and infection rates going down across the country, tourism entrepreneurs in the area hope more tourists will come to Nepal and eventually to Sauraha, where domestic tourists have kept some businesses afloat during the weekends.

Other than the weekends, Sauraha, home to 160 hotels and resorts, these days is virtually silent. This silence continues to hurt businesses.

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Damodar Regmi, manager of Hotel Nature Heritage, says he is hopeful things will start getting back to normal soon. "I think the market will pick up again.”

The recent government decision to issue on-arrival visas to foreign tourists has also rekindled hope among local businessmen. Shyam Mahat, manager of Hotel Central Park says, “The decision to issue on-arrival visas will help tourism, and it will make things easier for all.”

But flying in to Nepal is still expensive compared to the pre-covid days. There are fewer flights connecting Nepal to the rest of the world and airfares are almost twice as expensive as in the past. 

Suman Ghimire, former president of the hotel association’s Chitwan chapter, said that it would be easier for foreign tourists to come to Nepal only if airfares are slashed. "When the number of flights increases, only can the tourism business prosper," he adds.

“In the last fiscal year, 92,209 people visited Chitwan National Park, out of which 1,364 were from SAARC nations. Of the 178 tourists who visited in July and August, 98 were from SAARC countries,” says Lokendra Adhikari, information officer of the park.