It is sometimes
argued that lower-end tourism spreads the benefits around more to the
various strata of the local population, and is therefore more democratic
both in terms of those who travel and those who serve the travellers.
But there are surely ways to ensure that even such tourism can be regulated
in a way that both provides more income to the host population and prevents
the destruction of local environment and culture. But the proliferation
and fierce competition between hoteliers in Nepal - struggling with
occupancy rates of around 30 per cent on average even as new hotels
keep coming up - and other segments of the tourism industry makes this
almost unrealisable in practice.
One reason
for this state of affairs is the sheer openness and lack of regulation
in Nepal's tourism industry. As Kanak Mani Dixit has pointed out in
a recent issue of Himal ,"Nepal's tourism has always started
at the high end, but then the 'service providers' proliferate and the
asking price plummets. The country becomes a tourist heaven and tourism
hell - enough to begin asking whether the industry is here to serve
Nepal or vice versa." (South Asian Himal, May 2000 page 16)
One way
out of this would be to promote high value tourism systematically, even
to the extent of limiting the number of tourists and charging high rates.
Countries like Bhutan and the Maldives have been using this strategy,
exploiting their special natural environment to some effect. In Bhutan,
however, while it does mean that traditional ways of life have been
preserved, it has meant hardly improvement in the material standards
of the people even in the areas commonly frequented by tourists.
The Maldives
presents a different picture. The government confines tourism to individual
otherwise uninhabited islands, with a developer having unique access
to a particular island for its own resort. This has allowed very high
value tourism, and has also meant huge employment generation, to the
extent of attracting migrant labour from elsewhere in South Asia.
But in
Nepal so far such efforts have been less successful. The comparable
model is for the region of Mustang near Tibet. The walled city 3,500
metres above sea level is still one
of the last outposts of the animistic Bon Po religion which existed
in Tibet before Indian monks brought Buddhism to the plateau in the
fourth century. The visit requires a five day trek
from Jomson to Lo Manthang, which is not easy but commands stunning views
of the Tibetan plateau and the summits of the Himalayan peaks to
the south.
Because
of this, the number of hikers undertaking this journey increased steadily
over the 1980s. Since 1992, the government in Kathmandu has strictly limited tourist access
to the area to 1000 trekkers per year and charges a premium tax of $70
per day in the form of a special permit for visiting the roadless plateau.
This is intended to preserve the local culture while providing more
income to the community. But local residents have complained that most
of the money
has gone to Kathmandu rather than into local infrastructure such as
schools, hospitals or badly needed bridges, and that the limited number
of tourists means that little income or employment is generated within
the area. There have also been complaints the thefts
of priceless religious objects from the crumbling monasteries have been
on the increase.
This last
point exemplifies the pitfalls of being less security-conscious, less
obsessive about own possession, which are in fact some of the more attractive
Nepali attributes. Indeed, in tourism, as in much else in Nepal, it
is precisely these easygoing traits which may have worked against the
best interests of the people themselves. As one Pokhara resident put
it, "our problem is that we are too open and too easy about allowing
everything, from building ugly shops on the lakeside to allowing foreign
terrorists to operate in the country". It is sad but possibly correct
to think that more sustainable and less damaging tourism in Nepal would
have to built upon a change in such attitudes, and a more rigid and
controlled context.
