Mani Raj Lamichhane

Senior Director, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB)

Mani Raj Lamichhane is a tourism administrator, development practitioner and scholar with over 25 years of experience at the intersection of tourism, public policy, institutional governance, inclusive development, resilience and international cooperation.

He currently serves as Senior Director at the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), having joined in 2008 and progressed through roles from Manager to Officiating Director and Sr. Director. His work spans strategy, standards, planning, monitoring and evaluation, destination development, crisis communication and regional governance.

As National Project Coordinator for UNDP Nepal's Sustainable Tourism for Livelihood Recovery Project (2021–2023), he supported post-COVID recovery, gender inclusion and over 6,000 short-term jobs for affected tourism workers. The project received PATA Gold Awards in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

He contributed significantly to Nepal's Tourism Sector Resurgence Action Plan–2079 and the strategic framework for the Tourism Decade 2023–2033. From 2019 to 2025, he served as Member Secretary of the Governing Committee and Coordinator of the Technical Committee for Nepal's Tourism Satellite Accounts, advancing evidence-based tourism policy and measurement. He has collaborated with UN Tourism, UNDP, Swisscontact and IFC on tourism statistics, rural enterprise development, resilience and institutional capacity.

As Founding Director of the NTB Gandaki Province Office, he pioneered Pokhara's Lakeside Street Numbering Program, Pokhara B2B Meet 2019 and the #HappeningNow campaign. Notably, he pioneered Nepal's "World Tourism Day Village" model in Chitlang, announced on World Tourism Day in 2013.

He is a PhD Scholar at the Institute of Global Development, Zhejiang University, specializing in International Affairs and Global Governance.