World observes various international days to reinforce the achievements of humanity by educating the public on issues of concern. Society has to embrace these days as a powerful advocacy tool to make aware the people about the global issues and mobilize resources to address them.
Among many internationally observed days, World Tourism Day is also one that has been celebrated on 27 September each year since 1980. This date was the anniversary of the adoption of the UN Tourism Statutes on 27 September 1970. But the UN Tourism General Assembly held in September 1979 at Torremolinos, Spain decided to institute World Tourism Day, commencing in the year 1980. Since then, World Tourism Day has been marked globally making it socially, culturally, politically and economically important.
This year, World Tourism Day 2025 is being celebrated on September 27 Saturday under the theme “Tourism and Sustainable Transformation.”
Tourism is a social, cultural and economic phenomenon that gives opportunities to the people for movement from one to other places to experience new things either for personal or professional activities. Besides economic backbone, tourism is a catalyst for social progress as it makes people aware of new opportunities, create employment.
As Nepal is also well prepared to celebrate World Tourism Day 2025 highlighting tourism’s transformative potential for positive change Nepal was shaken by the “Gen Z” protests at the very start days of Autumn season which is known as tourist season. The Gen-Z unrest of September 8, which lost 19 students’ lives in a day with hundreds of injuries turned violent on September 9 Tuesday. This angry violent mass protest resulted in heavy damage in many government buildings to private properties including tourism infrastructures by fire.
However, with this unbelievable 36-hour protest brought some changes in the political arena but damaged properties worth billions of dollars including the tourism sector.
It is estimated that over Nepalese Rupees 25 billion infrastructures facilities are turned into ashes and lost bread and butter of nearly four-digit emp
However, as the country is peaceful now the whole sector including the tourism industry is also slowly returning to a recovery while trying best to regain confidence again.
To accelerate recovery, the government as well as private-public tourism concerned stakeholders of Nepal have launched coordinated efforts of tourism sector rebound policies with the coordination of Nepali embassies abroad to restore Nepal’s image spreading the message that Nepal returns to a normalcy and restored Nepal as a safe destination.
Lonely Planet ranked Nepal as the eight best destination to visit. But according to the government data, Nepal welcomes 577,689 international tourists from January to June 2025. Over 88K tourists visited Nepal in August 2025. In 2024 over 1.15 million tourists visited Nepal which was 1.01 million in 2023.
Internationally, France consistently ranks as the most visited country in the world followed by Spain and the United States. In 2024, over 102 million tourists visited France followed by Spain with 93.76 million tourists and the United States with 72.39 million tourists. So far, France has been the most visited country for over 30 years.
Other top destinations are Italy, Turkey and Mexico. Last year, Turkey welcomed 60.6 million tourists whereas Italy received 57.7 million tourists and 45 million tourists visited Mexico.
While talking about the city, Bangkok, Istanbul, London, Hong Kong and Mecca are the top five cities that received the highest number of tourists in 2024.
Bhutan, Kiribati, Samoa Tonga and Vanuatu are the least visited countries by tourists.
Tourism is a vital economic pillar and a powerful tool for development, having the potential to address a wide range of global challenges including poverty, employment, climate change and environmental degradation.
Nepal is a land of adventure to nature, cultural to spiritual tourism where tourists can revitalize their mind, body and soul amidst scenery that is simply a knockout. Besides mind boggling natural adventure beauties the tourists also can enthrall with excitement in a land of age-old unique culture and proudly preserved festivals.
Since becoming a specialized agency of the United Nations in 2003, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has been playing a vital role in the field of tourism as a driver of economic growth offering leadership and support in advancing knowledge and tourism policies worldwide.
The transformative power of tourism is reflected in various key outcomes of conferences and summits. Thus, at the initiation of the UN, global governments have adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development along with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. Tourism can play a huge part in achieving the SDGs and UN Tourism is committed to provide the global tourism community with a space to come together and realize the 2030 Agenda.
Tourism is a powerful driver of transformation which creates jobs, fuels local economies, supports infrastructure and contributes to development far beyond GDP.
Tourism builds bridges among diverse humanity by strengthening bonds between people and places. Thus, it requires good governance, long-term sustainable strategic planning with clear priority setting mission and robust round the clock monitoring.
Youth aged between 15 to 24 represent 15.5% of the global tourism workforce. UNWTO said, in 2024, tourism contributed 10% of global GDP and created one in ten jobs.
Today, tourism is one of the world’s leading industries that has been experiencing a new revolution with cross-cultural interaction preserving global culture for the future.
