The ongoing South Asian Games (SAG) 2019 has delighted tourism entrepreneurs in the country.

The occupancy of the hotels in Kathmandu valley as well as Janakpur and Pokhara has gone up significantly after SAG kicked off. As per the hoteliers, around 2,200 rooms have been booked from November 26 to December 10 for foreign players and delegates.

In this backdrop, the tourism entrepreneurs in the country have raised a voice for the promotion of sports tourism in the country.

“Nepal is already famous for adventure tourism that includes paragliding, skydiving, skiing, ice climbing and others. If we could organize international events related with such adventurous activities, Nepal can easily meet its target of bringing two million tourists next year or five million visitors by 2030,” said Khum Bahadur Subedi, president of Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal.

He further said that such activities would also help to promote Nepali destinations in the international arena.

Meanwhile, CN Pandey, president of Nepal Association of Tour and Travel Agents (NATTA), said that SAG 2019 has proved that Nepal has a good potential for sports tourism.

“SAG 2019 has helped to disseminate the information that Nepal is equipped to handle such international games,” he said, adding that such international games are good opportunity to welcome a large number of tourists in the country.

International games provide a major boost for tourism sector of the host country, as it marks the arrival of players, officials and spectators who come to participate and observe the event. During their stay, they are likely to visit different places and post updates on the social media.

“Such activities help to promote the destinations,” Pandey added.

“Moreover, word-of-mouth publicity is the most powerful tool for destination promotion.”

He, however, said that the government has to build more infrastructure to conduct such big events. “In this regard, the private sector is always ready to join hands with the government for development of the tourism sector.”

Amidst this, Sudhan Subedi, official of Nepal Tourism Board, said that Nepal is now gradually moving towards sports tourism. “Nepal has been organising international tournaments of golf since a very long time, but it has not been fully promoted,” he said. “Golf tournaments are a good opportunity to attract high-end tourists into the country.”

He further claimed that the country already has infrastructure to host international sport events, although there is room for improvement.

“Such events should be organised at least twice or thrice a year,” he added.

He further opined that the private sector also needs to provide quality services and come up with attractive tour packages for tourists coming to participate in such events.

Recently the government also announced that the world famous Formula E race will be held in Mustang in 2021.