Kathmandu. Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has officially announced to celebrate the Visit Nepal ASEAN Year 2026 on the occasion of its 27th establishment day. Deepak Raj Joshi, CEO of the board, in the welcome speech at the inaugural ceremony, presented the ASEAN region as one of the high-potential markets for Nepal, and unveiled a special strategy targeting 2026.

CEO Joshi said that more than 1 lakh 7 thousand tourists from Asian countries have already visited Nepal, which is a big and long-term market for Nepal. “Nepal will be strongly positioned in the ASEAN market through Buddhist and spiritual tourism, nature and adventure tourism, wellness and Ayurveda, culture and community-based tourism,” he said.

The program was chaired by Secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Mukunda Niraula. Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Anil Kumar Sinha was the chief guest of the inaugural ceremony and Shraddha Shrestha, Minister for Women, Children and Senior Citizens was the special guest.

CEO Joshi said that Nepal is expected to receive 1.16 million tourists in 2025, which is an increase of about 3 percent compared to the previous year. According to him, by 2025, 31 tourism marts, 12 branding and corporate activities, and more than 20 MICE events will be held.

According to him, tourism promotion through live broadcast from eight major tourist destinations, travel information publication in 9 languages, 69 tourism infrastructure development and 41 programs and development activities were conducted from east to far-west in the period after the Genji movement.

“Tourism is not just a core sector but a multi-cross sector,” Joshi said. According to CEO Joshi, 2,600 professional human resources have been trained in various sectors in 2025 and works are underway to identify potential, quality enhancement, employment and market creation in the three major trekking trails of Kanchenjunga, Manaslu and Api-Saipal under policy-level research, market-based study and sustainable tourism project.

NTB also revealed seven major travel trends that will define 2026: peace over noise, Gen-AI over governance, trust over choice, road over air, highly personal experience over uniformity, off-grid destination over tested, and culture over choice.

The 2026/2035 Strategic Action Plan (2026/2035) will focus on participatory approach, digitally-driven professionalism, coordination of innovative policies and practices, blending local and global experience, eliminating unproductive programs and focusing on high-value tourism. Similarly, Vice-Chairman of the Board Ram Prasad Sapkota said that the Board was working to give results and focused the programmes in coordination with the private sector and the government.

Similarly, Employees Union President of the Board, Santosh Bikram Thapa, stressed on the need of paying attention to the capacity development of employees, improvement in financial by-laws and fulfillment of employees. Video message was released by PATA CEO Noor Ahmad Hamid, World Tourism Network and UN Tourism. On the occasion, the Board’s annual publication ‘In-Focus’ was also released.