Promoting Rural Tourism in Nepal

By Dhruba Rai

Promoting tourism in rural areas is a hard nut to crack. Mission is there, reduction of poverty. Policies are positive, encouraging rules and regulation of investment. Objectives are many, for god's sake nothing's left. Programs are enough, we need more budget. But, what about strategies? Do we have concrete strategies? This means, have we aligned our activities towards acheiving the mission. Have we backed up these activities on the basis of research outcomes? How long does it take sustained efforts to produce results?

Tourism has flourished in only urban areas where infrastructures and other amenities are already in place, and it will continue for many years. Local entrepreneurs should be able to handle all basic services relating to tourism. They should be able to provide proper rooms in hotels, hygienic foods in restaurants and standard services to tourists. It happens only when they understand the tourism in their way i.e. make money out of it. Obviously, it will not happen in overnight. It means, tourists will not visit to their places at once despite their huge investments in hotels, lodges and human resources. It's like a story of chicken or egg which is first, in a way.

My view on this is very simple. We should focus on promoting domestic tourism before attracting foreign tourists. It means that tourism development strategies should be soft market penetration focusing on domestic tourism promotion in rural areas. Implementing programs that promote domestic tourism not only increase the economic activities but also save money otherwise spent abroad by domestic tourists. In the meantime, the entrepreneurs will learn business tactics in the process of sustaining their businesses. And eventually, it attracts foreign tourists.

Besides promoting domestic tourism in national level, paid holidays' concept should be encouraged and implemented. Some institutions like banks, semi government organizations, public companies have already started the concept of paid holidays to their employees which is very, very encouraging in promoting domestic tourism. NTO should play a catalyst's role bridging the expectation gaps between urban tour operators and local entrepreneurs.

Similarly, government ministries, departments and other agencies can conduct meetings, seminars and workshops in those areas instead of spending monies in only star hotels and convenient cities. This type of MICE tourism definately helps rural tourism.