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Travel.monstersandcritics.com:

No place, they say, is quite like Nepal when it comes to tourism. Nothing can beat a trek in the Himalayas, say Nepalese tour promoters. ‘What you need is robust health, strong legs and willingness to walk up and down hills and valleys’, said Prakash Neupane, a trekking guide.

But Nepal, gripped by 10 years of a left-wing, extremist insurgency, saw only 277,129 tourists in 2005. The figures were more than 200,000 below those for 1999 to 2000. And only about 83,000 of them were revenue-generating tourists from Europe and the Americas. Nepal earned about US$ 77 million in foreign exchange from tourism during the last Nepalese fiscal year that ended on July 16th.

Tourist entrepreneurs in Nepal are elated that peace has returned to the land ravaged by the bloody Maoist insurgency that killed more than 13,000 people and displaced over 300,000, frightening away western tourists who once flocked to the Nepal Himalayas.

Nepal boasts a climate from torrid in the low-lying plains of the south to the temperate north and has always beckoned visitors, says a senior travel agent. ‘With the peace process now in place, we are now preparing to welcome tourists like never before’, said Bhola Thapa, owner of the prestigious President Travels and Tours.

Tourism is big business in Nepal and hundreds of budget to expensive lodges along the trekking routes in the Annapurna, Langtang and Everest regions of the Nepal Himalayas had to close down because of a drop in the number of trekkers in the wake of the Maoist conflict.

But all are upbeat that with the start of the tourist season in September, things will begin to look up. Top Maoist leader Prachanda told a meeting of travel entrepreneurs late last week, ‘We never targeted tourists even during strikes and war. Now also, we are equally committed to protecting the tourists’…

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