Nepal Just Opened Its Pitch to Japan and Britain at Two of the World's Biggest Travel Trade Shows

On 4 August 2026, the Nepal Tourism Board opened applications for Tourism Expo Japan. Three days later, on 7 August, it opened applications for the World Travel Market (WTM) in London — one of the two or three biggest trade shows in global travel. Nepali tour operators, hoteliers and airlines now have only days to apply for a stand at either show, and what the country takes to those floors this autumn will shape how it is marketed in two of its most important long-haul markets for the year ahead.

Neither show is open to the public. They are trade floors where destination boards, hotel groups and tour operators pitch directly to the travel agents, wholesalers, journalists and airline partners who decide what gets recommended, packaged and written about for the following year's travellers. For a country like Nepal, whose trekking industry runs on dozens of small independent operators rather than one national airline's marketing budget, a well-staffed stand at WTM London or Tourism Expo Japan can move next year's bookings more than almost any single ad campaign could.

Japan and the UK are not new relationships for NTB. Nepal exhibited at Tourism Expo Japan in Aichi in 2025, and the board has since signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's Wakayama Prefecture on sustainable tourism cooperation — the kind of government-to-government link that tends to precede joint marketing campaigns. NTB's most recent London appearance, at WTM 2025, was framed almost entirely around Nepal's sustainable-tourism credentials — guide-led trekking, community-run teahouses, NMA safety standards — rather than the resort-and-beach pitch most stands at WTM make. There is little reason to expect the 2026 stand to look very different.

The timing lines up with a broader run of good news for Nepali tourism. Arrivals for the first half of 2026 were up 7.4% on the same period last year, and international hotel groups have been moving in behind that growth — Marriott's 225-room Luxury Collection Kathmandu is due to open in October 2026, with a Ritz-Carlton and a Westin both confirmed for the capital later in the decade. None of that investment happens without confidence that demand, and the marketing to fill it, will keep growing — which is exactly what an NTB stand at these two fairs exists to prove to the room.

What this means for trekkers

None of this changes what you actually need to plan a trek well: real flight routings, an honest cost breakdown, and an operator who has been doing this for decades rather than one that just found a trade-show sponsor. If you are coming from the UK, our source-market guide to flights and costs from Britain already covers what these fairs will spend the next three months advertising. Wherever you are booking from, the fairs are a useful reminder that Nepal's tourism board is actively trying to earn your trip, not just wait for it.

Source: Nepalnews, Nepal Tourism Board.

Cover photo: Abdul Kayum via Pexels (Pexels License).