With the Nepali New Year 2081 BS inching closer, domestic and foreign tourists are thronging Pokhara, popularly known as the Lake City.
With this, tourism business and other activities in Pokhara have regained momentum, bringing cheers to tourism entrepreneurs.
Lakshman Subedi, the President of Pokhara Hotel Association, said that the number of guests in hotels here has increased by 50 percent, of late. “The occupancy of the hotel reaches 60 percent on Friday-Saturday,” Subedi said, “We expect it to reach up to 90 percent during the New Year.”
The occupancy of hotels in Pokhara was limited to less than 10 percent in December to January, which is considered to be the ‘off season’ for tourism. President Subedi further expects that the number of tourists will increase as the ’19th Phewa New Year Festival’ is being organized at Lakeside targeting the New Year 2081 BS.
President Subedi said that a 30 percent discount has been arranged for hotels during the festival. According to him, the hotel in Pokhara has the capacity to accommodate 40,000 tourists on a daily basis. “Currently, there are only 20,000 domestic and foreign tourists in Pokhara daily”, he said, “To fill in more than 1,200 hotels here, 40,000 tourists should visit Pokhara every day.”
Basically, hotel entrepreneurs have been elated with the resurgence of tourism after a recession partly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
