Nepal is well known for its natural beauty,
mighty Himalayas, diverse culture and
cheerful face of people. These qualities
made Nepal a unique place giving high
potentialities for the growth of tourism
industry. Tourism is not new phenomena,
however, making tourism a dynamic sector
of economy and accepting it as a vehicle
of poverty reduction is certainly relatively
new and timely thinking.
There are a number of ways that tourism
can help the economy make better performance.
Physically it contributes to accelerate
national development through expansion
of infrastructure; economically it contributes
to generate employment that helps uplift
the living conditions of local people.
It generates revenue, contributes to the
growth of GDP and helps earn foreign exchanges,
which again are directly or indirectly
linked to poverty alleviation in the country.
Natural,
cultural and manmade heritages are important
to flourish tourism sector but more than
that visionary plan, coordinated program
and adequate resources to implement the
plan and programs play important role to
really make the tourism sector a vehicle
of poverty alleviation. As the role of the
government has gone sea change during the
last decade of twentieth century, private
sector should come to the fore of economic
growth. Government alone is not there to
serve people; there are multiple actors,
such as, local government, private sector,
and community organizations.
Best
Employee
Jharendra
Prasad Chapagain
In
tourism sector, there is no doubt that private
sector plays a moving role. Nevertheless,
government implements some programs with
a view to play catalytic role for the growth
of this sector. Tourism business is so volatile
with socio - political environment. Nepal
has been facing hard times for some years.
Despite the adverse time in tourism sector,
government has been launching vigorous and
strategically designed promotional campaign
to build the confidence among tourists in
international market. However, there are
many things remained to do to overhaul in
tourism business in the country.
A host of policy documents,
including the Tenth Plan, PERC recommendations,
immediate action plan (IAP), budget speeches
and policy positions papers prepared by
the government have all stressed the need
for substantial improvement in the tourism
management system. But, on the contrary,
Nepal's decentralization schemes and experiments
in tourism sector reveals that several such
attempts in the past have had only marginal
effects on improving the services that are
required for a long term growth in the industry.
Efficient service delivery to the national
and international visitors and enhancing
the productive aspects of tourism industry
still remains neglected part of the industry.
