It was a bad year for Nepali tourism. As feared, the numbers are down by about 11 percent, due mainly to the hijacking of IC 814 on Christmas Eve and everything else we've done all year to keep tourists away.

If the post-hijacking publicity did the early damage, the five-month suspension of Indian Airlines flights and Royal Nepal Airlines' inability to increase seat capacity did the rest. Then, from 1 October, Indian tourists were required to produce valid identification papers while flying into Nepal. This forced many to cancel immediate travel plans.

But tourism was looking good in November when the number of third country tourists surpassed last year's count. Then came the hotel strikes and it was all over. The Nepal Tourism Board says only 376,503 tourists came to Nepal by air compared to 421,188 in 1999. The slump in arrivals was 10.6 percent, due mainly to the massive 32 percent drop in Indian arrivals. Indian tourist arrivals, which had begun to improve in the third quarter, again nose-dived towards the year-end, pushing figures down in the fourth quarter.