Tourism Impact on Nepal

Tourism in Nepal

Tourism in Nepal

Introduction

Nepal opened its mountains to tourists in 1964. The following year, a retired British Army officer began organizing walking expeditions into the Himalaya. They were the first of their kind. He provided guides, tents, porters, food, and an opportunity for Westerners to hike amid the highest mountains on Earth and ushered in the sort of guided treks that were soon to become the signature of Nepal's adventure tourism industry. Only a few thousand visitors arrived each year in the kingdom during the 1960s; however, their numbers increased rapidly to more than a hundred thousand a decade later. By the 1980s, the number of annual tourists exceeded a quarter million, sixty thousand of whom came exclusively to trek into the mountains. Drawn to the Himalaya by its magnificent scenery and cultures, travelers continued to multiply with each passing year until they peaked at the turn of the 21st century when a half million tourists entered Nepal. Subsequently, in the past few years, tourism has declined along with the country's deteriorating security situation to less than three hundred thousand visitors in 2004.

Tourism in Nepal

Tourism in the Himalayas developed initially from trading and pilgrimage, entering a second phase during the 19th century when the British established summer resorts away from the heat of the Indian plains. However, these activities involved relatively small volumes of visitors and the Himalayan region was not subject to large scale visitation until after Indian independence (Smith and Jenner 1992). The tremendous growth in mountaineering (and subsequently trekking) tourism dates from the 1950s, stimulated by the conquest of Everest by Sir Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing in 1953. The long-established tourism industry of Nepal attracts a relatively small number of visitors, currently 320,000 per year (KTMC 1992), but they cause disproportionate environmental damage. Impacts are most severe on the popular trekking routes around Anna-puma and Everest Base Camp where haphazard collections of teashops and inns have developed.

The influence of tourism on the cultural heritage of Nepal takes several forms. Firstly, it is manifest in alterations to vernacular building styles, construction techniques or raw materials resulting from changes in taste and a move towards western rather than traditional styles. Increased demand for accommodation and catering services frequently creates ad hoc developments of new buildings, with concomitant hygiene and waste-disposal problems A second category of impact comes from tourist pressure and urban pollution at historic sites. The increase of tourism to both Ladakh and Nepal has placed considerable pressure on fragile historic monuments. Failure to control such pollution and to divert some of the revenue from tourism for conservation purposes almost resulted in Nepal losing World Heritage designation for some of its Kathmandu valley sites during 1994. Some impacts may be beneficial, as where tourism revenues are used, generally at a local level, for the conservation of built heritage or community development projects. This may be for major rebuilding (as in the case of Thangboche monastery, Nepal) or minor restoration (to ...