KATHMANDU – Nepal will cut climbing fees for Mount Everest in the off-season to lure mountaineers to the world’s tallest peak and boost tourism hit by years of a Maoist conflict.
Dozens of mountaineering teams, each paying at least $US70,000, go to the 8,850 metre Everest summit during the main climbing season that runs from March to May.
But the giant mountain remains virtually deserted in the autumn and winter.
“We want to give incentives to off-season climbers to go to Mount Everest,” tourism minister Prithvi Subba Gurung told Reuters in an interview.
“We are working on proposals to give a 50 percent royalty cut in the autumn and 75 percent during the winter climbing seasons.”
The autumn climbing season runs from September to November and the winter season from December to January.
At least 520 climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest from Nepal and Tibet in this year’s main climbing season, the highest number since the mountain was first scaled by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953.
Tourism accounts for about four per cent of the impoverished nation’s GDP.
But the number of visitors fell to about 280,000 last year, down from nearly half a million in 1999, due to a Maoist conflict that killed more than 13,000 people.
The Maoists ended their decade-long conflict last year, raising so far unrealised hopes more visitors would return.
