Nepal will this year play host to a royal wedding with a difference when an openly gay Indian prince marries his partner at a Hindu temple in Kathmandu.
The ceremony is the start of what Nepalese lawmaker Sunil Babu Pant hopes will become a lucrative business for his country, whose once thriving tourism industry is still reeling from a decade-long civil war that ended in 2006.
Pant, the only openly gay member of Nepal's parliament, has set up a travel agency catering specifically for homosexual tourists, who he says face severe discrimination in many Asian countries.
He believes Nepal, which has made large strides forward on gay rights issues in recent years, thanks largely to his own efforts, is well placed to cash in on an industry worth an estimated 670 million dollars worldwide.
"If we brought even one percent of that market to Nepal it would be big. But I'm hoping we can attract 10 percent," said Pant, who was selected in May 2008 to represent a small communist party in Nepal's parliament.
Pant said he has been overwhelmed with enquiries since setting up his travel agency, Pink Mountain.
The company will offer gay-themed tours of Nepal's major tourist sites -- including Hindu temples that feature carvings of the god Shiva depicted as half man, half woman -- as well as organize wedding ceremonies.
Pant's plans have won the support of the tourism ministry in Nepal, a deeply conservative, mainly Hindu country that nonetheless has some of the most progressive policies on homosexuality in Asia.
