Empirical Review of tourism in National Context

Shrestha (1999), has concluded in her Ph. D. dissertation is concerned with the problems and prospects to tourism in Nepal. The main findings of her study are:

ü    Tourism has emerged as a major segment of Nepalese economy contribution substantially to the foreign exchange earnings.

ü    Employment generation

ü    Overall economic development of the country, she concludes the lack of physical infrastructure in tourism spots. Most of the service infrastructures are mainly concentrated in major urban areas and few popular trekking routs.

She has further recommended certain strategies to develop tourism in Nepal by producing new and suitable catering to the interest of all types of tourism by age, sex and occupation and to introduce both urban and rural tourism products. The road network should be well developed and road conditions should be properly improved. She further recommended to developing another international airport preferably in the Terai region that would be technically viable. Solar energy and small hydropower project are recommended especially on the trekking routs and at wildlife resorts with view to protect natural environment of the area. To use of satellite communication media such as international televisions channels, CNN, BBC, ZTV etc. internet, CD- ROM should be used for promotional purposes.

Upadhyay (2003), states in his Ph.D. dissertation that many countries have made various attempts to promote tourism industry as a means of economic progress. The economy of Nepal lacks in terms of industrialization, some further alternative is to be found which can induce the process of industrialization to put the path of rapid economic development, to study the scope for global linkage of the Nepalese economy with special reference to tourism. He has suggested that tourism sector has the potential to link the backward Nepalese economy with the forward economics and to induce the other sector of the economy.

Ghimire (2008), has studied on her study that in the scenario of productivity in agriculture sector, tourism can be a high productive sector to compensate the unemployment and disguised unemployment prevailing in the country as well as Gulmi district. It has comparative advantages than other industries such as it has low opportunity cost, it takes low gestation period. Similarly, to give return it can in involve the lower strata of the people of all ecological zones, involves women and ethnic groups and bears direct relation to all dimensions of like culture, environment, nature and behavior of people. It fulfills basic requisites of development such as; it adjusts with decentralization and good governance, open base for greater role of women as partners for development and space for gender equality. In this basis, tourism can be a leading sector and socio- economic force in the economy of Nepal.

          Upadhyay (2008), states in his studies that landmark in the history of tourism in Nepal. In this book, he has described rural tourism, its problem and prospects in detail. The book has been prepared with the contribution of well- known and experiences of scholars and entrepreneurs. In this book, perhaps it is the only article supported with field survey based information. In a nutshell this book provides a holistic treatment to all the emerging issues of tourism and this very useful document that contains several materials related to rural tourism. Therefore this book is very useful to all national as well as international researchers, policy makers and every person who wants to study about rural tourism.

Shrestha (1999), has made a study in her Ph.D thesis that highlighted tourism industry having great prospects in Nepal. Being labor intensive industry, tourism sector has high potentials for generating employment and it is a multi sectoral industry. The performance of tourism industry from economic prospective also far from satisfactory. The tourism earning did not rise in term of US dollars because of low per tourist expenditure. Nepal considered as one of the lowest per day spending outlet comes to be known as a cheap tourist destination.         

Shrestha (1999), in her Ph.D. thesis has analyzed that tourism has emerged to the foreign exchange earnings, employment generation and overall economic development of the country. Nepal is a country of amazing biodiversity, offering an unprecedented attraction to foreign visitors in terms of scenic beauty, fascinating and enchanting indigenous culture, ta reassure house of historic and religious monuments and shrines. Natural wealth and rich cultural heritage are the main tourism attributes of Nepal. Despite enormous potentially for tourism development, Nepal has however, not been able to reap adequate benefits from tourism sectors. Despite having tourism resource potentialities, it was perceived that lack of sufficient investment: proper planning and lack of vision were the main causes for not being able to utilize the resource potentials. Similarly lack of infrastructure such as good roads, airports, communications facilities, shortage of power and water supply in potential tourist spots were responsible for the inability to diversify throughout the country, moreover, weak institutional capabilities and lack of sufficient coordination among the sectors concerned with tourism were a additional factor for unsatisfactory performance of tourism industry. The limited allocation of resources and inefficiency in implementing the tourism plans were another hurdles. Being a multi-sectoral industry, involvement of various acts and policies created a lot of confusion and contradictions within the tourism industry.  The last but not the least is the inability to establish linkage between tourism and other sectors of the economy.

Aryal, Bhanu Raj (2002), in his thesis on the topics "The problems and Prospects of Tourism Development in Nepal", he found from his study the total tourist arrival is in increasing trend. Mainly tourists arrived in Nepal for six purposes such as: pleasure, Trekking and mountaineering, Business, official, Pilgrimage meeting and Seminar and others. And he further found that the young tourists are very much interested to visit Nepal.

He suggests that through his study, there should more and more tourists' spots for more tourists. For this long term infrastructure development programmes should be implemented.