President inaugurates Visit Lumbini Year 2012

President Dr Ram Baran Yadav inaugurated the Visit Lumbini Year 2012 formally from today.
“I declare 2012 as the Visit Lumbini Year and the end of the Nepal Tourism Year 2011,” said the President lighting a peace torch.
More 5,000 people, diplomats, government officials and stakeholders were present at the official inauguration of the Visit Lumbini Year 2012 that aims at attracting one million tourists, half of them foreigners. About 600,000 tourists, including 129,000 foreigners, visited Lumbini in 2011.
President Yadav also launched ‘Vision 2020’, a tourism perspective plan that aims at bringing in two million foreign tourists annually by 2020 to give a boost economy and create employment in the tourism sector to one million. Under Vision 2020, the government seeks to conduct tourism campaigns every year and the events will be aimed mainly at increasing employment, identifying new tourism products and uplifting the economic condition of the rural people through ‘proper’ and ‘justifiable’ utilisation of local resources.
Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai has formally announced the Visit Lumbini Year 2012 in Lumbini on December 1,2011 after the cabinet decided — on October 17, 2011 — to observe the year 2012 as Visit Lumbini Year.