Nepali government to lease old palaces for tourist-catering business

The Nepali government has been preparing to lease the Kathmandu-based old palaces for foreign and local investors who are willing to set up tourists-catering businesses in the next fiscal year, officials said Friday. The Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), a wing under Nepal's Ministry of Tourism that is established to facilitate tourism development in the country, said it has already prepared profiles of 90 historical palaces and monumental buildings in the country's capital. "As the spaces and buildings for initiating tourism related business in Kathmandu is limited, there is still a strong need for them,"Subash Niroula, acting chief at NTB, told Xinhua on Friday. NTB had initiated a research entitled"A study of historically and architecturally important buildings of Kathmandu Valley," earlier in 2013 aiming at identifying historically, archeologically and architecturally significant buildings in Kathmandu, especially the grand buildings and palaces built during the Rana era. "We have prepared the report and are all set to submit it to the Tourism Ministry for the implementation of the idea,"said Niroula, adding that his office will submit the report to the ministry next week and ask the concerned government authorities and stakeholders to implement the plan. There are several monumental buildings in Kathmandu that have already been turned into tourists-catering business enterprises. Such buildings, including Babar Mahal Revisited, Hotel Shanker and Garden of Dreams, among others, have now been the first choice of foreign tourists visiting Kathmandu. The NTB envisioned leasing such buildings at a time when most of the old and glorious buildings in Kathmandu and beyond have been left isolated and are gradually turning to ruin. "Leasing those buildings will have similar benefits like the preservation of old palaces, generation of revenue for government and on top of that attracting high end tourists to Nepal,"an official at Tourism Ministry told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. He added that the idea was still under consideration. The NTB plans to identify similar historic buildings and palaces beyond Kathmandu for the same purpose once the government implements the idea to lease the buildings in the capital.. .