Tourism in Nepal
Importance of tourism in Nepal
The importance of tourism comes to light since it brings in lots of advantages with it to any host country. It promotes the country's name around the globe. It can be a great source of income for a country. Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, and many other countries today are counted as flourished nations and the main reason behind this is the development of the tourism industry. Nepal each year gets a lot of visits and is in the path of tourism development by pre-planning events and activities to allure tourists. Below are a few points for the importance of tourism in Nepal.
- Economic growth: For a developing country like Nepal, the tourism industry can be regarded as bliss as it is a source of foreign exchange and royalty earnings. Tourism succors other industries like hotels, restaurants, handicrafts, and many more to run in an efficient way. Nepal Rastra Bank report shows total foreign currency exchange (less return) for 2018 stood at NRs. 69,750,584 thousand, (Around 617,263 thousand US$).
- Employment opportunities: Employment opportunities in the tourism and hospitality sectors can be created either directly or indirectly. Direct Employment opportunities are the total number of job opportunities supported directly by travel and tourism for instance guides, employment by hotels, restaurants, rural inns, and guest houses, museums, travel agencies, tourism information offices, protected areas such as national parks, palaces, religious sites, monuments, aircraft, photography, sightseeing tours, farmhouses, local transportation. Tourism and hospitality also support indirect employment in activities like restaurant suppliers, construction companies that build and maintain tourist facilities, as well as necessary infrastructure, various handicrafts producers, marketing agencies, accounting services.
- Cultural exchange: Tourists from various countries with different cultural backgrounds visit Nepal. In addition to that, Nepal is a home of people with unlike cultural frameworks from being multilingual to multiregional. Hence people can know each other more and learn about their language, art, skill, food, etc.
- Publicity of nation: Nepal is a small country and has not made a remarkable name in the world scenario. Tourism helps to publicize the country around the world so that more people know Nepal and its authentic beauty. It helps to publicize Nepalese art, skills, tradition, culture, and hospitality to the world.
Ecotourism in Nepal
Ecotourism is defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education” (TIES, 2015). It is about uniting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel. In the sixth plan (1980-1985 AD), emphasis was given to the promotion of eco-tourism in Nepal by the government. Since then ecotourism has been flourishing and attracting tourists towards Nepal for wildlife viewing, wilderness camping, trekking, hiking vacations, white water rafting, and many more activities. Along with the conservation of floras and faunas, national parks, conservation areas, wildlife reserves, and hunting reserves have been serving as a prime destination for tourists to enjoy jungle safari and watching wildlife closely. This is an example of ecotourism in Nepal. Moreover, except the main areas of Nepal that are easily accessible by the tourists like Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Chitwan, Pokhara, Lumbini, etc, rustic areas with abundant possibilities aiding to the attraction of tourists like Manang, Mustang, Dolakha, etc are being promoted for tourism.
