Kathmandu. Yubika Bhandari, the candidate for the post of president of Nepal Association of Tour and Travel Agents (NATTA), said that she filed her candidacy to establish tourism as an industry of national priority.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking at a candidate orientation program organized by the Bhandari-led panel on Wednesday with the slogan ‘Tourism Rise, Nepal Rises’, President Bhandari said although the NATTA government does not have a body to formulate laws or issue orders, it would raise the issues of tourism entrepreneurs with the government in an effective manner and would continue lobbying and advocacy for policy reforms.<\/p>\n
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Bhandari said that she was born and brought up in the tourism industry and she has filed her candidacy for the post of president with the intention of contributing to the tourism sector.<\/p>\n
“I can’t sign laws, I can’t issue government orders, and I can’t force a ministry to work. But I can stand in their doors, raise our voices, and make our voices undeniable,” she said. <\/p>\n
She said that as the general secretary of NATTA, she had approached the ministries of culture, tourism and civil aviation, finance, home, labor and employment and foreign affairs and raised the problems of entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
She stressed that all the ministries should give priority to the tourism sector, saying the issues related to tourism sector get complicated due to lack of coordination among different ministries. <\/p>\n
She said that they have launched a campaign to make tourism the primary industry of Nepal.<\/p>\n
He said that he would lobby with the government to provide incentives like the export sector on the basis of foreign currency earnings and to arrange cashback or rebate on the foreign currency that comes for direct banking transactions. <\/p>\n
“A large part of the tourism industry is in the informal sector. The situation of burden of tax and various regulations on only the businessmen who pay tax by being formally registered should be ended,” she said. <\/p>\n
Bhandari stressed the need for an effective mechanism to compensate and protect the losses suffered by the tourism entrepreneurs during the pandemic, agitation and natural disasters.<\/p>\n
He pledged to take initiative with the government to arrange business insurance, liability insurance and crisis relief fund for entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n
She also said that there is a need for an international mechanism to safely bring back the money of the businessmen in cases of hacking of travel agencies’ online portals and reaching abroad. According to him, NATTA has been able to recover $1.1 million out of the $1.8 million ADM of IATA agents through continuous negotiations with the airlines.<\/p>\n
She said that efforts have also been made to extend the deadline of IATA payment after the agitation and long holiday and to refund the amount of non-refundable tickets in case of flight cancellation. <\/p>\n
Bhandari said that NATTA has been continuously lobbying for operation of Pokhara and Bhairahawa international airports and expansion of international connectivity.<\/p>\n
Stating that Nepal Airlines Corporation needs more aircraft, she said that a proposal to establish ‘sister airlines’ in public-private partnership (PPP) model has been put forward with the government. <\/p>\n
“We have proposed a model where tourism entrepreneurs can bring aircraft by investing small to big investment without putting any additional burden on the government,” she said. <\/p>\n
He said that in order to reduce the burden of tax in the tourism and transport sector, there should be an arrangement to pay tax at certain intervals instead of charging huge tax at once.<\/p>\n
She said that although tourists from India prefer to come to Nepal in their own vehicles, it is difficult to provide service at a competitive rate due to the high cost of transportation in Nepal. <\/p>\n
According to Bhandari, NATTA has launched new destination products, production of multilingual videos and magazines, international sales mission and B2B program for tourism promotion.<\/p>\n
She also informed that she has received two awards in the International Mountain Tourism Alliance (IMTA) for Annapurna and Mundhum Trail. <\/p>\n
She also said that more than <\/p>\n
900 members have been trained in four provinces in the last four years and initiatives have been taken to develop wellness tourism as a formal sector. <\/p>\n
If elected under the leadership of NATTA, Bhandari pledged to prioritize legal and financial assistance desk, digital connectivity, rationalization of VAT, connectivity to international airports, global B2B platform and vocational training for tourism manpower. Stating that youths are not only the ‘future’ of the tourism sector but also the present power, she pledged to include the voice of the new generation below 30 years of age in policy making.<\/p>\n
He said that NATTA would be taken forward by incorporating both the experience of senior entrepreneurs and the energy of the new generation. <\/p>\n
‘We have not promised to give strength, but we have promised to give an unstoppable voice. You are our real power. The voice of united entrepreneurs can become a movement,” Bhandari said. <\/p>\n
She urged the entrepreneurs to take the upcoming election as an opportunity to not only elect the leadership of NATTA but also to decide the future of the tourism sector.<\/p>\n
He said that he and his panel have moved ahead with the slogan ‘Nepal will rise if tourism rises’. She said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Tourism will be made the primary industry: Yubika Bhandari Kathmandu. Yubika Bhandari, the candidate for the post of president of Nepal Association of Tour and Travel Agents (NATTA), said that she filed her candidacy to establish tourism as an industry of national priority.\u00a0 Speaking at a candidate orientation program organized by the Bhandari-led panel onContinue reading “Tourism will be made priority industry: Yubika Bhandari”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":87277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-samachar-en"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/photo-1_169f77d1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87297,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87296\/revisions\/87297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media\/87277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}