Promoting Nepal in China: A general Prospective

He who travels far knows much is an old Chinese saying and travelling to learn more about foreign countries and their inhabitants is a major interest which for many Chinese citizens can be realized now. “What a joy to received friends from afar” the tourism industry of Nepal greeted 75,631 in 2011 with a quotation from Confucius. However, the choice for Chinese tourists is by now almost the whole world and their interests and expectations differ greatly from those of other international travelers. How to reach the potential visitors and how to provide adequate service to them are questions which are not easy to answer for many destinations including Nepal and service providers outside China.
China has developed into a major force in global tourism. More than a billion tourists move around within their own country, the largest number of domestic travelers in any country. 55.98 million arrivals in 2010 bring China into third position as a tourism destination worldwide.
For outbound tourism the Chinese government has been giving way to the demand of its subjects in several steps since the first visits to relatives in Hong Kong were permitted in 1983. Nepal was given Approved Destination Status in 2001 which allows Chinese tourists to visit the country. The number of the tourism destinations for Chinese citizens hit 140 in 2010. With this the number of outbound Chinese tourists reached 57.4 million in 2010, up 20.4 percent year on year. Long-distance leisure travel is still in reach for only a few per cent of the Chinese population-but even 4 or 5 % of 1.3 billion people amount to 50 or more million potential visitors. With the easing of passport procedures, the introduction of Approved Destination Status(ADS) for most major destinations and the installation of national “Golden Weeks” holidays, Chinese have become more mobile than before.
China outbound leisure tourism to destinations outside Asia started with the first ADS groups going to Australia and New Zealand in 1999. Since then the total number of Chinese citizens leaving Mainland China grew within five years from less than 10 million to almost 30 million persons, an increase of 313%.
Nepal is often named as the most coveted destination by Chinese tourists because people of both countries share borders and common value. Increase of 63.1% over last year tells the fact that Nepal is becoming a major tourist destination for Chinese. Earlier, many Chinese tourists came to Nepal as a single destination. However, over the last few years, Nepal is being visited by Chinese tourists as a second destination. Because of good and cheap flight connection between China and India, many Chinese tourists have started coming to Nepal in tandem with India. China is today connected to Nepal by more than two dozen flights every week, with daily flight from Guangzhou and Kunming.
Although Chinese travelers get involved in most of the attractions; they are specifically attracted in Cultural Sightseeing, shopping, casino and nightlife. Chinese tourists normally travel during the first weeks of May and October and during the Chinese New Year (January/February). Approximately 80% of the Chinese outbound comes from; Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Guangdong & Shenzhen.
One of the major requirements of Chinese tourists is the luxury. They want to stay in luxury hotels, eat lavish food, prefer luxury cars and buses and wish to buy designers’ cloth and commodities. Their preference is Chitwan and Pokhara, and they don’t like hard trekking like Europeans and Americans. Now a few Chinese tourists are get attracted to Lumbini and Buddhism.  But they are not as devout as Thais or Japanese.

The foremost necessity of today is to develop and promote Nepal as a comfortable and attractive destination with well placed physical infrastructure as Nepal is considered to be the unique destination because of its geographical, natural, biological, cultural, religious, historical, archaeological and human heritages. A few plus points we have are  Nepal is the birthplace of Lord Buddha with varied bio-diversity and national parks around having good air connection: Air China from Kathmandu-Lhasa-Chengdu-Beijing, China Eastern Airlines Kathmandu-Kunming, China Southern from Kathmandu-Guangzhou and Dragon Air from Kathmandu-Hong Kong. Since Chinese yuan is convertible currency in Nepal, they have not currency crunch in Nepal. 
We have galore of problems that need to be addressed such as political instability, frequent bandha, safety and security. We still lack Chinese tour guide enough to cater mass Chinese tourists. Although there is some promotional material in Chinese language, but these are not enough to attract mass tourists. Load shedding is a major problem that creates problem for tourism industry as Chinese tourists have had habit of staying in a hotel with AC and hotwater supply. Now Chinese can visit to more than 140 countries, it is a big challenge for Nepal to attract tourists in Nepal. Airfare to Kathmandu from Chinese cities is very expensive. It makes Chinese tourists go other places which is much cheaper in terms of airfare.
There are so suggestions for promotion of Nepalese tourism in China
• Focus in tourism promotional activities through Nepalese embassy and consulates in China together with China’s tour operators.
• Arrange channel to distribute Itineraries of tourism packages focusing Chinese tourists.
• Establish relation between Nepalese and Chinese travel agencies through tour operators associations and other PR agencies.
• More Research on Chinese behavior and developing the packages accordingly
•  The regular exchanges of delegation between Nepal-China should be used as marketing tool for promoting tourism.
• Many foreign tourists visit Lhasa every year; they could be attracted to Nepal through attractive packages and resuming Kathmandu-Lhasa bus service.

Chinese Outbound Tourists
28.85 million in 2004
31.03 million in 2005
34.52 million in 2006
40.95 million in 2007
45.84 million in 2008
47.7 million in 2009
57.4 million in 2010
70 million in 2011
Top Ten destinations for Chinese outbound tourists
1. Macau
2. Hong Kong
3. South Korea
4. Japan
5. Malaysia
6. Singapore
7. Thailand
8. USA
9. Vietnam
10. Australia

Favourable factors for Chinese outbound tourism
• More countries and regions in the ADS list
• Simplified visa application process
• Increased disposable income; more money to spare for
outbound travel
• Per capita disposable income of urban households: 14,334 yuan
(1-3Q10), grew by 7.5% yoy (real).
• Per capita cash income of rural households: 4,869 yuan
(1-3Q10), grew by 9.7% yoy (real).
• Increased desire for outbound travel
• Eager to enhance their quality of life, explore new things
and broaden their knowledge
Week-long holidays stimulate outbound travel
• Three “golden weeks” each year – Labour Day (May), National
Day (October) and Spring Festival (late January/early February).
The introduction of the five day work week has resulted in more
weekend domestic and short-haul travel.
• Diversified travel products and services
• More choices of package tours
• IVS allows more Chinese citizens to visit Hong Kong and Macau
• Improvement in cross-broader transport infrastructure
• Increasing number of flights and routes to and from China cities
• Increasing number of aviation ports
• State Council approved the “Revised Regulations for
Travel Agencies” and would gradually open up the
market for foreign agencies to offer outbound tour
services to Chinese tourists.
Increased number of Chinese and Asian low cost carriers
in operation, such as AirAsia, JetStar, Tiger Airways, etc.
• Online air ticket and hotel booking platforms such as Ctrip
are popular, increasing the ease of buying air tickets
• Appreciation of RMB to USD and Euro stimulates the
willingness to travel