PTDO celebrated its first anniversary in 1996 on September 27th, the World Tourism Day by lighting traditional oil lamps in Patan Durbar Square, a UNECO World Heritage Site. The entire cost for this event was born from the personal pockets of the members and this wonderful evening was much appreciated by the locals and foreign visitors alike. Since then, PTDO has been celebrating this day with different activities to promote this city, its culture, and resources and will continue with this activity in the future.
To inform visitors as well as locals on the various activities on and around PTDO initiated the publication of a magazine Patan Tourist Guide Book. However, due to various reasons, till date, only two issues of the magazine have been printed. PTDO is planning on reviving this magazine to promote and increase the number of visitors to this city as well as extend their length of stay.
On the request of the Department of Archaeology, UDLE prepared the “Patan Heritage Conservation Action Plan (master plan) in 1997 for the conservation and management of Patan WHS. PTDO played an active role in the preparation of this plan providing valuable recommendations on the culture and tourism in Patan. During the course of preparing this master plan, a study tour to Vietnam and Laos was organised by UNESCO in which Mr. Dilendra Shrestha participated as the representative of PTDO.
A grand festival “Lalit Festival 1998” was organised in Patan as part of the 1998 Visit Nepal Year celebrations to promote this city globally. PTDO played a significant role in organising this event as the principal promotional coordinator and consultant for the cultural sub-committee and as the member of the sub-committee.
Due to uncontrolled growth in the urban areas of Kathmandu valley, the historic centres are rapidly losing its traditional urban fabric replacing the rich vernacular architecture with unsympathetic and mediocre modern buildings. These invaluable architectural heritages that have been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List are part of our identity. In order to preserve this heritage and also support the lagging tourism activities in Patan, PTDO proposed a scheme to encourage homeowners to conserve and maintain their buildings, at the same time generate income from them by converting their residences to quality tourist accommodations. This scheme was presented at the Donor’s Meet in 1995 organised jointly by UNESCO World Heritage Centre and HMG Department of Archaeology.
This innovative idea to preserve the architectural heritage and increase economic activities that supported the tourism industry, a major source of income for Nepal was much appreciated at this gathering. As a result of this meet, in 1998 the National Federation of UNESCO Associations in Japan (NFUAJ) showed interest in this project and agreed to fund two buildings for this project. Two excellent examples of Newari architecture were selected to be renovated through this project, the Shrestha House and the Rajbhandari House. Both these projects are at the last stages of their restoration works and will be in operation very soon.
PTDO has participated in various tourism related workshops, domestic and international, to share its experience as well as learn from other organisations and cities. In April 1998, Mr. Dilendra Shrestha, the then President of PTDO visited Cyprus to study the village tourism industry on the invitation of the Cyprus Conservation Foundation. His experience in Cyprus was presented during the one day workshop on Village Tourism in Nepal organised by HMG Tourism Department in Pokhara in July 1999. In addition, PTDO has participated in various other seminars in Beijing (2004), Vietnam (1997), and Bhaktapur (1999) to share experience and build up networking with other domestic and international tourism related organisations.
PTDO was also one of the major local supporting partners for the Urban Management and Economic Diversification Project (2001/02), an EC-Asia Urbs Programme that aimed to increase economic activities through tourism activities that promoted proper city management and heritage conservation. During the two year period of this project, PTDO actively participated in all their activities and provided valuable consultations on the tourism market in Patan. Currently, PTDO is implementing another EC-Asia Urbs Programme, the Bandipur Eco-Cultural Tourism Project (2005/06) in Bandipur, Nepal. This is also a two year project that aims to promote and protect the cultural and natural resources of Bandipur as a tourist destination in both the domestic and international markets.
PTDO played a key role as the Head of the Steering Committee of the Urban Management Project that was initiated UDLE and the Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan City to tackle the urban poverty issues in the city.In addition, PTDO organises various activities with other organisations regularly such as the Schoolchildren Patan WHS Painting Competition in 2001 aimed to raise awareness and involve schoolchildren in their national heritage.
PTDO celebrated our 10th Anniversary on Tuesday, 27th September 2005, the “World Tourism Day” with various programmes specially designed to entertain tourists visiting Patan from 24 September to 27 September.
