photo credit: Nepal Tourism Board

Even the Sky is not the Limit

One thing we can be sure about is that tourism has been, is, and will be one of the most efficient ways to distribute wealth to some (not all) remote areas of Nepal. It has created work, services, and wages for local people. Tourism has also provided the needed incentive for local people to protect and better manage their natural, built and cultural assets. What has made no sense is to build a few meters-high view tower on a several thousand high mountain and waste Nepal’s scarce resources in the name of tourism. The real effort needs to be put into ensuring that what the tourists use while in Nepal are made in Nepal and all the food they eat are grown in Nepal. We also need to bring all the informal transactions into the formal economy so that taxes collected help pay for infrastructure and services that would enable the sector to grow.   

Neither priceless nor cheap

There are many words that we use to describe Nepal to a tourist that make very little economic sense. The monuments in the Kathmandu valley, the marker stones that are historical proof of the birthplace of the Buddha or the mandap where Bhagwan Ram and Sita got married in Janakpur are priceless. One can also hear promoters call Nepal cheap, once you have an air ticket to get there! Once they arrive, the expenses begin to mount from visa fee to “tourist rate” air tickets, inflated cold drink prices to commissions for currency exchange. Nepal is not cheap and should not be sold as cheap. We do not want tourists here because it is cheap but rather because you get your money’s worth. It should be a valuable experience and something they will recommend to others back home. People all over the world understand that we get what we pay for. We need to make sure no one feels cheated nor should they feel they are doing damage to the Nepali economy by paying low.    

Value for money

Tourists who visit Lumbini want to know about the life of the Buddha and his teaching, about Emperor Ashok, the migration pattern of cranes and why an international airport was built without any plan for its operation. Tourists who visit Chitwan National Park want to know how Nepal has been able to triple tiger population and the challenges and opportunities that this new success has created. Visitors to Khumbu and Annapurna want to discuss climate change, local efforts at adaptation and Nepal’s net zero target. Tourists visiting Panauti want to trace the hunting trip of Prince Mahasattwa and his ultimate sacrifice to save a starving tigress, and if this was at the heart of Nepal being able to triple tiger population. Once in a while we can over hear a guide telling the tourist that the fifty-five window palace at Bhaktapur was built because the king had fifty-five wives. Visitors to Pashupati want to understand how Nepalis view death and old age and how we cope with them.      

Lifetime experience as our marketing mantra

It seems that tourists in Nepal are not hard to please. Clean weather during a mountain flight, being able to drive to Pokhara or Chitwan in the time announced, or the sight of a rhino in the buffer zone of the national park seem to be enough at the moment. What we need to understand is that this is like answering questions in an exam just to get the pass mark, which is usually forty per cent. What about the other sixty per cent? For forty marks, we do not need to do much. The weather, the rhino and the traffic does it for us. The other sixty percent may consist of making momos, visiting a Newari painting school, taking a heritage walk through ancient Panauti, interviewing a former living goddess, trying to make pottery in Bhaktapur or meditating at Lumbini. All these require effort. What we need to do is curate a life time experience and market them well.  

Remember to subtract the cost of tourism

Many businesses around the world and in Nepal do their business as if the earth and all the natural resources we use are a free good. Water gets polluted and overused because it is free. Garbage is disposed of or set on fire for the same reason. Food would also go to waste if it were free as we see at weddings and public events paid by someone else. In Nepal water, fuel, food not only cost a lot but the time and effort that local people put into collecting and carrying them is huge. All of us have seen how cooking gas or rice is carried up to trekking lodges. It is a cost to the economy. The key question is how we ensure that all these costs are added up? More importantly have we deducted the cost of making our wonderful destinations ready for the next group of tourist from what we have been paid? Nepal cannot and should not subsidize the tourist. We must charge them a true and full cost.

Fees explained

Singapore has a reputation for imposing fines and Nepal has a reputation for charging fees for everything and anything. From monument zones to national parks, there are entry fees. There are fees at museums and for parking. There is no concept of an integrated fee structure and it is a real hassle to carry all the cash needed to get into each site.  At 1800 rupees per head, imagine taking a group of 30 tourists to Bhaktapur. No digital payment system is available at present. What we also do not do is explain why there is a fee and where it all ends up. When we explain to tourists in Bhaktapur about how the fee helps send all children to school, run colleges and maintain monuments and festivals, they are happy and never complain. If they pay a fee and cannot access a clean toilet, then they get irritated. Bhaktapur has also done a great job in keeping the whole city clean.   

Tourists’ questions and the feedback loop

If we really want to improve the Nepal experience that tourists have, we just need to listen to the questions they ask. Why is water always served in a plastic bottle? This should tell us that people still have to use polluted water and hence the large market for bottled water and dirty rivers with waste plastic bottles. Why are elephants treated so badly despite the fact that they make money for people and the park? Why did we pay for a liaison officer who did not accompany us on an expedition? Why were we overcharged by the taxi at the airport? We can see the highway is being upgraded, but why is there no construction work going on? I did not buy any local craft because the shopkeeper wanted four times the price of the final offer. I felt he/she was not honest. Why is the tourist charged way over the MRP printed on the cold drink bottle? Why does every youth we talk to, say they are trying to go abroad? All great feedback for Nepal.

Think of a number

Over four billion plane seats are expected to be sold in 2024. How many of them will land in Nepal is a difficult question to answer? Thailand gets over thirty million in a year and Paris, France gets over seventy million. Here we are celebrating crossing a million. The idea of setting a number as a goal is problematic and should only be used as an indicator. The real goal must be to give the tourist a truly “lifetime experience”. In a country that sets its revenue target based on how much we can tax imported goods, this may look natural. Now that we have built, but not operated three international airports, numbers that we can handle should grow at least three fold. Again the airport experience should be more important than numbers. Further how much each tourist spends and the number of days they spend in Nepal are better indicators than simple arrival numbers. As the saying goes, we need to count what counts, not what we know how to count.

Numbers matter but days and amount spent matter more

Nepal’s tourism strategy must be based on real hard evidence and not based on slogans, speeches by politicians or technical insights of experts. This must be backed by real and reliable numbers. Bhaktapur, it seems, gets one in three tourists who come to Nepal while Patan, it seems, gets one in seven tourists. Further, of the three tourists who go to Patan Durbar Square, only one goes as far as the Hiranya Mahavihar (golden temple). Once we know this, we can develop and launch ideas to increase numbers and provide visitors a true lifetime experience. It will be really good to know how many fine dining restaurant seats are available on a real time basis at seven monuments zones of Kathmandu every evening. How many pilgrims at Lumbini require wheelchair support? We need to know before we waste resources.

Leverage under-used infrastructure

Airports, like the one in Bhadrapur, are under-utilized and need to become an integral part of the local economic development strategy for the local palika. Imagine the airport selling seats for tourists from Bihar and West Bengal to take a mountain flight to Sagarmatha and then a stopover at Muktinath, down to Janakpur and then Bhadrapur again. Why can’t it be done? Because we have not done it before. There is always a first time for everything. Why can’t we do chartered flights for Gorkha families and tourists from Pokhara to London? Buddhist pilgrims would like nothing better than to land on the sacred soil of Lumbini from anywhere in the world. Is there any vested interest group that wants everything to flow through the Kathmandu airport? Imagine flights for pilgrims to Mt. Kailash from Lucknow in India to Nepalgunj or Simikot. Airports were built with scarce resources and should be utilized to the full.

Beyond Daal Bhaat and Temples

The Kathmandu valley has seven monument zones included in the UNESCO world heritage list. Imagine a tourist being driven through the traffic in the valley so that all these sites can be covered in a single day. In between they are served daal bhaat. We all need to be so much more creative. Kathmandu and Nepal have so much more to offer. We know that tourists can spend a whole day in and around Boudha. From observing carpet weaving to thangka painting, from tasting Thukpa to Kothe, from lighting butter lamps to attending puja at the local monastery, Nepal has so much to offer. At Kasara in Chitwan, the Gharial breeding center will help the visitor to understand how Nepal and its tourism revenue is helping protect our globally unique endangered species. The boat rides down the Rapti or Narayani and the sight of the Gharial on the banks is a truly lifetime experience.

When we stay average

Many people ask the rhetorical question as to why young professionals are leaving the country. Let us take the example of a hotel in Chitwan where the tourist who has just checked in needs to call the front desk three or four times. First for why the water is not running, second because the AC does not work, third the TV does not come on and fourth for the internet password. Imagine you are the young staff at the hotel having to answer these calls. Once the big investments have been made, it does not cost much to keep appliances in operating condition. The answer that we often get for the state of affairs is that in Nepal it is the same everywhere. This is what we mean by “when we stay average, the average goes down.” This is exactly how we get into a race, not for the top but for the bottom. We must all aspire to deliver more than the average; this is how Nepal will become a great destination with the best human resources.

Nepal for the faithful

The parking area and highway near Manakamana is always crowded with vehicles with Indian number plates. The number of people who want to travel to Mount Kailash from all over the world is growing and the number of hotels in Nepalgunj and Simikot are evidence of this demand. Muktinath is another sacred site that is full of the faithful. The Indian PM has done his part to make the place famous. The aarati held at Pashupati temple and the daily kora at Boudha have become very popular among the faithful. Many people around the world aspire to visit these sacred sites at least once in their lifetime. Lumbini is one of the most popular for the global Buddhist community. What we need to realize is that the needs and nature of pilgrims are different from those seeking adventure. The management of these sites must be sensitive to those needs.

Season vs. skills: why limit ourselves?

Nepal is tourist ready all year round. The concept of a “tourist season” only applies to certain destinations and times of the year. We need to say, “the best time to see wildlife is ...and, “The best time to enjoy the festivals of Bhaktapur is…” Nepal has so much to offer and yet we limit ourselves by telling the tourist to come here only during specific months. This needs to change. People employed in the tourism sector complain that the seasonal income is not enough. That is why we need to be tourist ready all year round. This also means that everyone involved will have to retool and train for new and additional skills. Taking tourists to Bhaktapur during the Biskaa jatra in April will be very different from taking them to Sagarmatha base camp in October.

Young minds and heritage passport

Many young Nepalis have opted to study at hospitality schools and joined the workforce here and abroad. Many students in schools also aspire to become tourism entrepreneurs. For this, they need to travel and get to know Nepal from a very young age. The Nepal Heritage passport, like the one we launched at Hanumandhoka, is a rally good tool for all young minds across the country to begin to experience Nepal.  In the same way we need to train government appointed guides and conservation officers at the various museums, heritage sites and national parks to be able to tell the story of Nepal better. We need to have better quality books and digital content that will help young Nepalis to appreciate Nepal and be able to explain it to the rest of the world.  School children across Nepal must be taught to recognize their birds, plants, mountains, monuments and tell the story of their culture, music, festivals and food.

Research support by Rosha Bajracharya and Sunil Pandey