Government of Nepal through its Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation declared the year 2020 as the Nepal Tourism Year and brought up the ambitious number of bringing in 2 Million tourists within that year. This seems and sounds very intimidating for the tourism entrepreneurs and overall economy of the country. I think the government must have put lot of thoughts before declaring the numbers and year. But also we should question our airports infrastructure, roads, internal transport system, domestic airlines safety check and most importantly removing Nepal from European Union’s black list.

We know that aviation sector is one of the most competitive, attractive, risky and global industry which connects people, cultures and businesses across continents. It is necessary for all stakeholders and partners to work together to maximize the benefits of air transport and to support the sustainable growth of aviation by connecting more people and more places more often. The aviation industry has continued to expand and has weathered crisis and demonstrated long-term resilience becoming an indispensable means of transport.

Aviation provides the only rapid worldwide transportation network, which makes it essential for global business. It generates economic growth, creates jobs, and facilitates international trade and tourism. According to recent estimates by the cross-industry Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), the total economic impact (direct, indirect, induced and tourism-connected) of the global aviation industry reached USD2.7 trillion, some 3.5 percent of world’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014. These facts and data do not include other economic benefits of aviation, such as the jobs or economic activity that occur when companies or industries exist because air travel makes them possible, the intrinsic value that the speed and connectivity of air travel provides, or domestic tourism and trade. Including these would increase the employment and global economic impact numbers several-fold.

So, the main reason to have discussion on aviation sector is to launch Nepal as a “Transit Nation” like Singapore, Thailand, Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Qatar. Nepal too should be benefitted with this globalization trend going all over. We should now focus more on upgrading our airport infrastructure and domestic airlines safety for giving safe, secured and state of the art facilities to the tourists we are expecting. We’ve huge potential in tourism sector which still untapped because of our own policies and instabilities. We don’t need bigger airports, we just need better ones.

Nepal’s Central and State Government should start having discussions on opening midsized state of the art international airports in each province which should be completed before next election. Each regional international airport will help boost the tourism of all the provinces creating jobs and resulting into developing the nation as a whole. Why only expect two million tourists a year, let’s expect 5 Million tourists after the completion of our airports and lets imagine the scale of the transaction if each of them spending US $ 300 during their stay. Can you see the numbers now?

It’s easy to work out on numbers and its’ tough to work on developing on infrastructures. But we have to do it any how to prosper the way we want to and place Nepal on the global platform of developed nations one day soon. We have resources and planning, we have ideas and talent too. We just have to act with our good conscience and work with good ethical standards.

We should learn from UAE, China, India, Turkey and some other countries on developing world class airports. Recent example of world class airport is “Beijing Daxing International Airport” in Beijing. The airport is designed to accommodate 72 Million passengers in a year by the year 2021 also 20 Million tons of cargo and mail annually.

Again I would like to add that we don’t need bigger airports, we just need better and beautiful ones. We have huge potential in tourism industry and we easily can attract Millions of tourists and creating a billion dollar industry within shortest interval of time. Just we need to keep in mind that “Discipline the key to development” and with this we can achieve whatever we want in the best interest of our nation.