Nepal, April 22 -- For decades, the spring season (March to May) has been one of the two peak tourist seasons in Nepal, drawing in hundreds of thousands of tourists, some of whom seek to capitalise on the only time suitable for Everest ascent. This year, however, the hallways of star hotels have gone silent, and the trekking trails of the Himalayas have few tourists. All due to the externality of the conflict in West Asia. With tourist numbers crumbling, bookings tumbling and last-minute mass cancellations, the current havoc in Nepali tourism is a searing indictment of a strategy dangerously over-dependent on a single transit corridor.

The escalating tensions in West Asia have sent shockwaves across the globe, but in Nepal, the impact is...