Permit fees to climb Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, are going up for the first time in nearly a decade – to $15,000 – but Nepal is making 97 of its Himalayan mountains free to climb for the next two years to boost tourism in some more remote areas.
The BBC reports that Nepal’s tourism department said it hoped the initiative would highlight the country’s “unexplored tourism products and destinations”.
Himal Gautam, director of Nepal’s Tourism Department, is quoted as saying: “Despite their breathtaking beauty, the number of tourists and mountaineers here is very low as access is so difficult. We hope the new provision will help.”
Climbing is a significant revenue source for Nepal, which is home to eight of the world’s ten tallest mountains. Mountaineering fees brought in $5.9m last year, with Everest accounting for more than three quarters of that.
The peaks for which fees will be waived are in Nepal’s Karnali and Sudurpaschim provinces, and range between 5,970m and 7,132m.
[Image: By Jeremy Zero – The Himalayas, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=105214420]