Travel Biz News —-

The United Nations General Assembly has held a second thematic event focused on tourism and the sector’s critical role in critical role of tourism in advancing sustainable development and resilience.

Organized by the President of the General Assembly in collaboration with UN Tourism, the event was held at the UN Headquarters within the framework of Sustainability Week. The presence of Member States, Observers, civil society organizations, and UN agencies reflected a growing collective commitment to harnessing the transformative power of tourism for inclusive and sustainable development.

Addressing the General Assembly, UN Tourism Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said: “The growing significance of the tourism sector for our societies and our economies brings with it extra responsibility. We cannot allow the lifeline of tourism to be cut again. Resilience in the tourism is not just a matter of planning or reacting to crises. It is also about proactively addressing the underlying factors of those crises. Unsustainable consumption is leading to biodiversity loss, climate change and the emergence of pandemics. It’s vital that we adopt policies that accelerate transformative change.”

The President of the General Assembly, Dennis Francis, said: “We need a global tourism sector that is sustainable – one with deep local value chains that expand demand for locally made products and services in ways that also directly and positively benefit local communities; a sector that serves as a positive force for biodiversity conservation, heritage protection and climate friendly livelihoods.”

The thematic event provided a platform for Member States to share best practices, strategies, and innovative approaches to promote sustainable and resilient tourism, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Key highlights included:

  • Fireside Chat: The Future of Tourism – Leaders from the tourism industry, academia, and civil society engaged in a dynamic discussion on the future of tourism and the need for innovative solutions to address emerging challenges and opportunities.
  • Ministerial Roundtables: Discussions were held on the launch of the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism and strategies for fostering resilient tourism in the face of global challenges. Ministers and high-level officials shared insights and commitments to advance sustainable tourism practices and policies.

In closing, the President of the General Assembly reiterated the importance of collaboration and partnership to address the complex challenges facing the tourism sector and reaffirmed the UN’s commitment to supporting sustainable tourism as a catalyst for positive change.

In February, the UN General Assembly adopted a Resolution to declare 2027 as the International Year of Sustainable and Resilient Tourism. The resolution invites UN Tourism to work with Governments, UN agencies and international organizations to on the implementation of the themed year. Source : UN

17 April 2024

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you all to the High-Level Thematic Event on Tourism – focusing on the crucial role of tourism and its extraordinary potential to contribute to sustainable development.

Tourism is one of the most dynamic sectors of the global economy. The numbers speak for themselves.

In 2023, tourism accounted for 3 per cent of global GDP – with an estimated direct gross domestic product of $3.3 trillion. The sector employs one in every 10 people around the world.

And with women holding 54 per cent of those jobs – versus 39 per cent in the broader economy  – tourism provides an important vehicle for women’s empowerment.

Its capacity to attract significant volumes of foreign direct investment and rapidly increase exports has made it an attractive and popular catalyst for development.

For countries in special situations – least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States – it is an indispensable driver of income and tax revenue, not to mention, employment directly created in the sector as well as those that are spin-offs in other sectors.

In fact, in small island developing States alone, tourism accounts for nearly 35 per cent of all export earnings, and as much as 80 per cent of national exports.

But, with a country’s heavy dependence on tourism comes cost and huge potential risks.

Despite the spectacular benefits reaped across its vast supply chains – tourism is also intrinsically susceptible to a host of disruptive forces – such as climate change, pandemics, acts of terrorism, and domestic political instability.

When disasters strike, the economic fallout is often huge and immediate – felt painfully in losses to GDP, foreign currency earnings and employment leaving countries only a crisis away from the near total destruction of the very economic base they need to pay for goods and services and other imports from abroad.

In parallel, the tourism sector’s massive consumption of energy, land and water – and crucially its high generation of carbon emissions – can create unbearable pressures on fragile natural ecosystems, if adequate attention is not paid to the issue of sustainability.

Around the world, once vibrant coral reefs are falling victim to cruise ships, docking facilities, spikes in recreational fishing, and even land-based chemical effluent released into the environment that eventually finds its way to the sea.

In parts of Africa, and elsewhere around the world, wildlife struggle for places to naturally graze, breed and roam – as forests, rivers, and land continue to disappear, due in part to overuse, without any regard by the industry to the safe and optimum carrying capacity of those areas.

The explosive popularity of social media has only compounded these pressures, with “the fear of missing out” driving travellers to destinations in greater droves – in some cases causing a 1,000-fold increase in the visitor population.

The resulting dire consequences are often borne by local communities – particularly indigenous peoples, who have preserved 80 per cent of the Earth’s forests, grasslands and other eco systems for centuries.

How are we to manage the unique challenges of growing this vital industry, while at the same time, preserving and protecting the precious and often fragile ecosystems that created them in the first place?

We need a global tourism sector that is sustainable – one with deep local value chains that expand demand for locally made products and services in ways that also directly and positively benefit local communities.

A sector that serves as a positive force for biodiversity conservation, heritage protection and climate friendly livelihoods;

A sector that harnesses digital technology, fosters innovation – and expands opportunities for job creation and economic growth, including for women, young people, indigenous and local communities.

In order to get there, we must value what counts.

I therefore invite the General Assembly to support the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism – which was adopted at the UN Statistical Framework just last month.

It offers a much-needed foundation for measuring the economic, social, and environmental aspects of tourism – at both local and global levels.

But sustainable tourism alone is not enough to create long term stability in the sector and to guarantee job sustainability.

We also need a global tourism sector that is resilient; a sector that understands and caters to its own vulnerability, helps to formalise the informal economy, is designed and built such that the physical plant is able to withstand external environmental shocks and in possession of necessary ancillary systems in place – to minimize the period of recovery after a disruptive event.

In such a scenario, many opportunities abound for strong multistakeholder partnerships.

Increased focus on public-private-partnerships is required – and broad diversification of activities, so that countries and communities are better supported to shorten the recovery time needed to resume full operations after a disruptive event.

Above all, there must be recognition that the key sectors of the economy and issues featured throughout Sustainability Week – that is to say, resilient infrastructure, sustainable transport, renewable energy, and relief from the unjust burden of exorbitant debt – are all essential to building sustainability and resilience in the global tourism sector.

We are, therefore, fortunate to have a diversity of voices here today sharing their perspectives from different operational vantage points of the tourism industry.

I look forward to hearing your views on how we can more effectively harness the power and potential of the global tourism sector to accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals – including through alleviating poverty and fulfilling our central promise of leaving no one behind.

Opening Remarks by the President of the General Assembly,
Mr. Dennis Francis, at the High-Level Thematic Event on Tourism

16 April 2024

Simone Galimberti —-

If there is a place where the interlinkages and dependencies between the effects of climate warming and biodiversity loss are clearly at display, it’s Nepal. There is clear evidence on the impact of climate change on the country’s ecosystem considering the fact that Nepal is an important biodiversity hotspot.

Climate change and biodiversity loss, if unchecked, can activate mutually devastating loops of devastation that hardly can be offset by any plan and strategy. The only solution is a much stronger level of coordination and policy alignment, not only within countries like Nepal but also regionally.

This is one of the reasons why scientists and experts working on the upcoming IPBES Next Assessment that attempts to study the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health with actions to achieve the Agenda 2030 while combating climate change, chose Kathmandu for their latest summit.

The linkages between climate warming and biodiversity loss were also one of the key hallmarks of COP 28 in the UAE where, for the first time, biodiversity preservation was recognized as a paramount factor to fight climate change.

In the first Global Stocktake, the main outcome document of the COP 28, there has been a strong reference  to the implementation of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).

In practice, for nations, it means to work hard to converge the climate and biodiversity agendas as the new cycle of Nationally Determined Contributions, the key mitigations plans prepared by each nation party to the Paris Agreement, will also have to include elements related to biodiversity.

This can be proved to be challenging considering also the efforts that a country like Nepal must also put to implement its adaptation plans.

Coordination and alignment between the mitigation and adaptation is at least provided in what should be as the country’s “master plan” to fight climate change, its National Climate Change Policy whose latest iteration was approved in 2019.

It is a document that identified 12 areas, from agriculture and food security to forests, biodiversity and watershed conservation to water resources and energies to rural and urban settlement, tourism and transportation, just to mention few.

Yet ensuring such policy level harmonization is going to be daunting, considering the traditional fragmentations that characterize policy making in Nepal.

At governance level, there are two key mechanisms that have not been fully harnessed.
The first one is the apex body in matter of climate action, the Climate Change Council that is chaired by the Prime Minister.

Its convenings have been not only rare but also mostly symbolic and devoid of substantial decisions. If you think about the challenges faced by Nepal, this should be the most important bureaucratic body at policy level but you seldom hear news about it.

The second instrument at disposal is the Multistakeholder Climate Change Initiative Coordination Committee that should bring together the best minds in the field. So far, what potentially could be a great platform for dialogue has been wasted.

The fact that the Government has formally included the Nepalese Youth for Climate Action as a constituency, does not absolve the authorities from being lacking in terms of proactively enabling and putting in place a structured and formal mechanism in matter of climate.

The latest IPBES Global Biodiversity Report, published in 2019, confirmed, once again, that unequivocally “nature and its vital contributions to people, which together embody biodiversity and ecosystem, functions and services, are deteriorating worldwide”.

“Nature across most of the globe has now been significantly altered by multiple human drivers, with the great majority of indicators of ecosystems and biodiversity showing rapid decline”.

The latest report by the World Meteorological Organization could not be even more daunting, once again, proving we are living in the hottest times ever. The key message from the IPBES Next Assessment’s meeting held in Kathmandu was equally daunting and unequivocal, declaring that the whole Hindu Kush Himalaya’s biosphere is “on the brink’.

Another event organized by ICIMOD, the international conference on Climate and Environmental Change Impacts on the Indus Basin Waters, stressed out the essentiality of coordination.

Highlighting key findings of a series of new reports focused on ensuring effective “integrated river basin management”, this gathering underlined how climate change becomes the “urgent catalyst for collaboration over three key river basins in Asia, the Indus, the Ganga, and the Brahmaputra”.

In a press release issued by ICIMOD, Alan Nicol from the International Water Management Institute that collaborated in the writing of the reports, affirmed that the “level of challenges facing the Indus Basin call for collective action across the basin”.

How can such coordination be turned into reality within Nepal and within the whole South Asia?

At national level, climate action should permeate and be embedded in each sphere of policy making. Mechanisms like Climate Change Council and Multistakeholder Climate Change Initiative Coordination Committee must be seriously and meaningfully activated and empowered.

Considering the deep connections between climate and biodiversity, the latter, normally overshadowed by the former domain, should also be included or at least taken into account when the decision makers deliberate on climate related issues.

Enhancing coordination exponentially must be a priority but not only at central level especially in a federal country like Nepal.

Though federalism is still very much a work in progress and where the seven provinces still lack powers and real autonomy, it remains paramount to empower local bodies as well.

Imagine the immense work that must be done in the field of mitigation and adaptation, the two key areas of action within the climate agenda alone. Only in relation to adaptation, the National Adaptation Plan 2021- 2050 aims to mobilize the staggering figure of US$ 47.4 billion of which Nepal will only contribute US$ 1.5 billion.

In the recent “National Dialogue on Climate Change” organized by Municipality Association of Nepal made it clear that local bodies must necessarily be empowered to fight climate change.

A case study  prepared by Prakriti Resource Center, one of the most renown climate focused organizations in Nepal, revealed the failure in effectively implementing the Local Adaptation Plans for Actions (LAPA), despite being revised 2019 to reflect the new federal governance of the country.

Local governments should also be at the vanguard of mitigation efforts but reality tells us a different story.

A limited and distorted focus of mitigation mainly in terms of production of hydropower energy, a federal competence, compounded by lack of resources, is currently disempowering local governments from taking action.

Frustrating and disappointing remains the work in the field of biodiversity. Both centrally and locally, there is a lack of urgency here even though the country can count with some success story in local forest preservations by local communities.

Yet, also on this case, Nepal is at risk of falling into a complacence trap without additional strategic thinking.

There is the need not only of coming up with a new, revamped national strategy but it is also essential to evaluate the implementation of the latest National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan 2014 -2020, especially in relation to design and execution of Local Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans.

But, as we know, coordination and alignment by overcoming silos approaches, should not stop within the national borders.

Here there is an opportunity to put together some sort of regional cooperative framework that, as we saw, are strongly encouraged by the experts. New synergetic impetus at national level in both climate and biodiversity areas could spur the country to also take the initiative regionally.

It can happen in a way that could, at least revamp and give some scope to the almost defuncted South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation, SAARC. Cooperation in South Asia in a novel integrated fashion that links and combines climate efforts and biodiversity preservation, is a must.

Geopolitical rivalries cannot impede it even if, it means, in practice, effectively sidelining the SAARC.

What all this could mean for Nepal?A joint, combined approach to preserve nature and fight climate warming, together with a revamped attention on pollution and sustainable consumption habits, other two essential aspects that must be tackled in the years to come with urgency, could bring about not only a better and more effective forms of governance in the country.

It could also enable Nepal to become a trailblazer in revamping regional cooperation, pragmatically in areas where traditional rivalries must be set aside for the sake of South Asian citizens’ common good.

A good way to start is to at least to get the “homework” well done in the country, preparing itself on how integrating biodiversity in its negotiations for the next climate COP 29 in Azerbaijan but also be serious about the upcoming biodiversity COP 16 in Colombia.-IPS UN Bureau

Simone Galimberti is co-founder of Engage a local NGO promoting partnership and cooperation for youth living in disability and of The Good Leadership, a new initiative promoting character leadership and expertise among youth.

17 April 2024

Photo : A boy sifts through the rubble of his earthquake-hit home in Rukum (West), Nepal, in November 2023. Credit: UNICEF/ Laxmi Prasad Ngakhus

Travel Biz News —

UAE-headquartered Global Hotel Alliance (GHA), the world’s largest alliance of independent hotel brands, has started its 20th anniversary year on a high note, reporting robust Q1 results across all key performance indicators.

Exceeding expectations, total hotel revenues for Q1 2024 jumped to US$649 million, up 17% compared to Q1 2023, while total room nights picked up 20% and the Average Daily Rate (ADR) across its portfolio of 800 hotels nudged up 2%, according to a release issued by Dubai based GHA.

The GHA Discovery loyalty programme continued to grow in popularity, with new enrolments increasing 28% in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

Further underlining the success, the total cross-brand revenue, driven by members staying in a different brand to where they enrolled, increased 32% to $86.2 million in Q1, with hotel brands benefiting the most including Anantara, Kempinski, Pan Pacific and PARKROYAL.

Since launching just over two years ago, D$206 million have been issued to GHA DISCOVERY members, and with D$1 equal to US$1, which has created a stimulus for travel within the alliance, and has helped drive more direct bookings for hotels, which are up 40% on GHA channels over 2023. Nearly two-thirds of those direct bookings are now made on the GHA DISCOVERY app.

International stays made by the 26 million GHA DISCOVERY loyalty programme members dominate: 68% of hotel room revenues were generated by international stays, led by properties in the Maldives (99% of revenue from international stays), Thailand (94%) and Hong Kong (86%).

US and UK members highly influential: 72% of the room revenue from US GHA DISCOVERY members and 89% of the room revenue from UK members came from their international stays.

The US is the most important feeder market for GHA hotel brands, generating $52 million in international room revenue in Q1 2024, followed by the UK with $37 million. This collective $89 million represents 26% of total international stays room revenue. Repeat stays room revenue from US members in Q1 2024 increased 33% compared to Q1 2023, while repeat stays from UK members rose 20% year on year.

2024 destination hotspots revealed: The most preferred international destinations for each major feeder market were: Saint Lucia for US members; the UAE for members in the UK and Germany; Thailand for members in Russia; Hong Kong for members in mainland China; and Singapore for members based in Australia.

“As we enter our 20th anniversary year, GHA is not only delivering impressive numbers, but tangible business growth to our hotel brands. Our Q1 results also underscore our commitment to providing our GHA DISCOVERY members with unparalleled choice and flexibility; the surge in new enrolments and record-breaking redemptions of D$ reflect their level of engagement with the programme” said GHA CEO Chris Hartley.

Since GHA was launched in 2004, the alliance has grown exponentially to represent a collection of 40 brands with more than 800 hotels, resorts and palaces in 100 countries, and the 26 million members of its GHA DISCOVERY loyalty programme, first launched in 2010, now drive $2.3 billion in revenue and 10 million room nights (as of 2023).

GHA has diversified its loyalty offering with two new partnerships too, joining forces with ultra-luxury cruise line Regent Seven Seas Cruises in 2023 to reward cruisers with D$ and status, and vacation rental platform Plum Guide in March this year, rewarding members who stay at any of their 38,000 remarkable vacation homes.

15 April 2024

Photo : Kempinski Mall of the Emirates Dubai Horizontal

Travel Biz News —

Maldives plans to welcome at least two million tourists this year. Tourist arrivals in the Maldives surpassed 600.000 in the first three months of this year, whereas tourist arrivals in three months of 2023 was 523,928, according to information released by Ministry of Tourism of Maldives.

On average, the Maldives welcomes approximately 6,265 tourists daily, with visitors spending an average of 8 days during their stay.

The breakdown of tourist arrivals by month was – 192,385 tourist arrivals In January, 217,394 in February and 196,227 in March of this year.

Chinese tourists constitute the largest portion of total tourist arrivals so far this year, accounting for 11.2% of the overall figure, with 67,399 visitors. Following China, Russia and the United Kingdom stand out as the next highest sources of tourists, with 61,752 and 58,382 arrivals, respectively, PsmNews reports.

The government of Maldives plans to initiate various promotional campaigns aimed at promoting the Maldives as a premier tourist destination to attract at least two million tourists this year.

Minister of Tourism Ibrahim Faisal recently unveiled strategies to spotlight individual atolls in the Maldives for targeted tourism promotion. He outlined plans to explore new tourist markets, with a focus on substantial investment in tourism sector.

Faisal also underscored plans to implement promotional campaigns for guesthouses and resorts, anticipating a significant increase in tourism figures over the next five years.

8 April, 2024

Photo: Chinese tourists arriving in Male (Ministry of Tourism, Maldives)

Travel Biz News —

International arrivals to Việt Nam in March 2024 reached nearly 1.6 million, up 4.4 per cent compared to the previous month, according to the latest report from the General Statistics Office.

This means that in the first quarter of 2024, international arrivals to the country reached over 4.6 million, a whopping increase of 72 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The first quarter 2024 number is also 3.2 per cent higher than the first quarter of 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic struck and also when Việt Nam scored its biggest arrivals number of over 18 million, which shows recovery is on the way for the tourism sector.

This positive result is due to favourable visa policies, tourism stimulus programmes, and the efforts of the Government and domestic tourism businesses.

Visitors from Asian countries continued to make up the largest portion in the total figure, with over 3.5 million arrivals (up 81.6 per cent year-on-year), followed by visitors from European nations with 661,800 arrivals (up 71.9 per cent). Up 302,300 visitors were from the Americas (up 14.5 per cent), 143,700 were from Oceania (up 37.2 per cent), and 13,100 from Africa (up 112.1 per cent).

Of the total of over 4.6 million international arrivals to Việt Nam in the first quarter of this year, air travel accounted for 83.6 per cent; road travel accounted for 13.5 per cent, and sea travel accounted for 2.9 per cent.

Revenue from accommodation and dining services in the first quarter of 2024 is estimated at VNĐ174.8 trillion (about US$7 billion). Revenue from tour operations is estimated at VNĐ14.1 trillion, accounting for 0.9 per cent of the total services revenues in the country, up 46.3 per cent compared to the same period last year.

First-quarter 2024 revenue for some localities increased significantly compared to the same period last year, including Đà Nẵng (69 per cent rise), HCM City (59 per cent), Cần Thơ (57.7 per cent increase), Hà Nội (47.6 per cent) and Quảng Ninh (18.5 per cent).

The number of Vietnamese outbound travellers in March reached 537,000, making a total of 1.2 million for the quarter, up 11.5 per cent compared to the same period last year.

In 2024, Việt Nam’s tourism aims to welcome 18 million international visitors, 110 million domestic tourists, with total revenues of VNĐ850 trillion.

The Việt Nam National Authority of Tourism (VNAT) under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that the whole industry needs to effectively communicate, promote and advertise in the new situation, clearly identify target markets, and directly approach customers to promote destination information.

Additionally, the tourism industry needs to enhance cooperation with central and local authorities, as well as businesses, to implement tourism promotion and advertising activities.

VNAT is studying and consulting the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on the issuance of relevant regulations to adjust activities related to the Tourism Development Fund to enhance the effectiveness of promotional activities and support tourism development.

Aside from that, according to VNAT, tourism is a comprehensive economic sector, and international visitors to Việt Nam come not only for leisure purposes but also for MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions), health care and sports activities. Therefore, besides meeting basic needs such as accommodation and transportation, it is necessary to develop more diverse products and services to cater to these tourists.

April 1 , 2024

Photo : Foreign tourists visiting Temple of Literature in Hanoi .- VNA/VNS Photo Trần Việt

Travel Biz News —

The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy of Indonesia plans to provide incentives to boost international tourist arrivals to the 2024 target of 14.3 million.

“We are currently exploring the strategy. Back then, we provided incentive per person but it must be approved by the Ministry of Finance first,” the ministry’s director of tourism marketing for Asia-Pacific, Raden Wisnu Sindhutrisno, said at a seminar in Tokyo on Tuesday.

He informed that previously, the incentives were in the form of cuts in plane ticket prices, such as discounts and cashback.

The effort is needed because other ASEAN countries, such as Thailand and Singapore, are promoting their tourism more intensively with significantly large budgets.

“We already have the capital with the awards that our destinations received…we have everything, nature, culture, for that reason, we are inviting them (tourists) and promoting (Indonesia’s tourism),” he said.

The effort is also considered necessary as airline passenger seat occupancy has not reached 100 percent.

For instance, he noted that in 2023, there were 13 China-Indonesia flights per day with a total of 1.2 million seats a year and unoccupied seats pegged at 15–40 percent, meaning the number of passengers was only around 700 thousand out of the maximum capacity.

“If we want to achieve 14 million foreign tourist arrivals this year, we must ready 22 million seats,” he said.

Tourist arrivals in 2023

Meanwhile, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) recorded that cumulatively, the number of foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia during the period from January to December 2023 had reached 11.68 million, thereby indicating an increase of 98.30 percent from 2022.

“It rose 98.30 percent as compared to the same period in 2022,” Acting Head of BPS Amalia A. Widyasanti stated while delivering the Official Statistics News in Jakarta recently.

The figure surpassed the total number of foreign tourist arrivals in 2022 that only reached 5.89 million.

Southeast Asian countries are still dominating in the top 10 countries visited by Indonesian tourists.

Malaysia is the main destination for Indonesian tourists traveling abroad, with a share of 27.98 percent, which showed an increase as compared to the previous year.

After Malaysia, the other nine countries are Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Thailand, Japan, China, Australia, and South Korea.

Saudi Arabia has the second-biggest share after Malaysia, with 17.41 percent, followed by Singapore, with 17 percent.

The average length of stay of Indonesian tourists in 2023 was 15.05 days per trip. – (Inputs from Antara )

27 March 2024

Photo : Foreign tourists in Sanur Beach, Bali. ANTARA/Ni Luh Rhismawati.

Travel BizNews —

Forced labour is happening all over the world and it’s earning criminal gangs an astonishing $236 billion a year – $64 billion more than a decade ago, UN researchers said on Tuesday.

In an alert, the International Labour Organization ( ILO) said that this increase had been fuelled by the growing number of people forced to work illegally, but also by higher profits.

ILO senior research officer Federico Blanco told journalists in Geneva that traffickers and criminals make close to $10,000 per victim, around $1,700 more than they did in 2014.

“The human toll is also incalculable. These illegal profits represent wages, resources, livelihoods, effectively stolen from workers”, he said.  

“This not only affects the workers themselves, but also their families and the flow of migrant remittances, disrupting entire communities.”

The profits from forced labour are highest in Europe and Central Asia – at $84 billion – followed by Asia and the Pacific ($62 billion), the Americas ($52 billion), Africa ($20 billion), and the Arab States ($18 billion).

Forced sex work generates more than two-thirds of profits, even though it only involves around one in four of the overall number of people forced to work illegally.

This is because exploiters make more than $27,000 a year from each illegal sex worker, which is far more than the average $3,600 in profits generated by most other forms of forced labour. – UN News

19 March 2024

Photo : Forced labour generates profits of $236 billion per year,. – UNICEF

Pokhara ( RSS ) : Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ has pledged to lend necessary support and cooperation for the development of Pokhara, the Tourism Capital of Nepal.

 In his address to a function organised to announce Pokhara as the Tourism Capital of Nepal here today, the Prime Minister said the government will accord top priority to develop Pokhara as further green, safe, systematized, beautiful and prosperous city.

 He also assured of seeking support and cooperation from the international development partners for the enrichment of infrastructure development needed for the tourism capital. The Prime Minister said the Investment Summit that Nepal is hosting next month will be helpful in such efforts.

 The Prime Minister on the occasion announced that the government will take initiations to operate commercial international flights from the Pokhara International Airport.

 According to the Prime Minister, the government will take further measures to effectively operate the Korala-Tribeni transit serving as the gateway to Muktinath, the famous religious shrine.

 As he said, the scale of cooperation and monitoring will be intensified to conclude the Mid-Hill Highway and the Muglin-Pokhara section along the Prithvi Highway. He called for the cooperation among the private, government and civic level to promote the internal tourism.

 On the occasion, Gandaki Province Chief Minister, Surendra Raj Pandey, said the announcement of Pokhara as the Tourism Capital will help in its branding.

 Pokhara metropolis mayor Dhanraj Acharya was of the opinion that the announcement would contribute to improving living standard of the citizens of Pokhara, creating employment opportunities and eliminating poverty. He pledged to intensify the infrastructure development in Pokhara through combined efforts among the three-tier government. 

Pokhara Tourism Council (PTC) submits memorandum

Meanwhile , the Pokhara Tourism Council (PTC) has submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, calling for, among others, starting international flights from Pokhara International Airport.

A delegation led by PTC Chairperson Pom Narayan Shrestha met with the Prime Minister in Pokhara today and handed over the memorandum to him.

PTC has called the attention of the government, citing that the major roadways connecting Pokhara were in dire condition and the international flights from Pokhara International Airport were not regular so far. The Council has called for starting international flights to and from Pokhara at the earliest.

The memorandum states that the tourism entrepreneurs had to face crises one after the other for some years. Stating that the investment is at risk due to the sluggishness in the economy and employment is also declining, PTC, through the memorandum, called for providing motivation and time to the tourism entrepreneurs to pay back the loan.

The Council also demanded to restructuring of the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) and ensuring the representation of Pokhara on the NTB Executive Board Member that is currently lying vacant.

The Council has urged the government to start international flights from Pokhara International Airport initially from the Nepal Airlines itself and then encouraging other airlines as well providing them incentive packages.

The PTC also mentioned in the memo that the prohibition on individual paragliding has demoralized the paragliding adventure sports players as they cannot conduct practice paragliding flights.

It may be recalled here that the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) had banned individual paragliding after a paragliding accident in the course of the Ninth National Paragliding Competition last year.

17 March 2024

Travel Biz News —-

The Kazakhstan International Tourism and Travel Exhibition – KITF 2024 will be held from April 24 to 26, 2024, in the pavilions of Atakent Exhibition Complex (Almaty).

More than 300 companies from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Vietnam, Georgia, Egypt, India, Italy, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, UAE, Russia, Slovenia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, South Korea and Japan will present a wide range of opportunities and new tourism products of destinations.

The expo event will cover various sections of tourism, including international and domestic tourism, medical tourism, MICE tourism, IT solutions for the reservation system and insurance.

KITF ‘s rating and stable position are always high in the lists of the international tourism community, attracting thousands of participants and visitors from all over the world. The 2024 Exhibition will provide advanced novelties and the most advanced tools for effective networking, exchange of experience, as well as for concluding new business partnerships, which will certainly contribute to the further development and prosperity of the global tourism industry , according to a release issued by KITF secretariat and  ITECA.

KITF 2024 is preparing to become the epicenter of innovative ideas and industry trends.

China, will present the “World Nomad Games 2024” and participate in the “Alga, Kazakhstan!” round table with the participation of government agencies of neighboring countries.

The main objective of the ITECA.EVENTS platform is to create ideal business communications between visitors and participants. The application operates using artificial intelligence, advanced algorithms to improve interaction and exchange of contacts with the ability to schedule meetings, collect leads, and mobile use of the most up-to-date information.

The Official Partner of the KITF 2024 exhibition is KOMPAS. The Partner of the Business Program of the Exhibition is TRAVEL SUCCESS ACADEMY. The Exhibition is organized by ITECA Kazakhstan Exhibition Company and its International Partner – ICA Events Group of Companies.

For more information about KITF 2024 : www.kitf.kz

March 14 , 2024