Basantapur Durbar Square and Pokhara at its best

TOURISM IN NEPAL

TOURISM IN NEPAL

“Let’s make it better”

        *Rabin Sapkota

Something very commonly debated topic, topic that fails to pinpoint on the objectives that can be accomplished and the opinion and thought that gets marginalized. Nepal, pioneer of tourism industry in the region with plan policy and strategic document is still in predicament not knowing what this industry offers. The problem is not in the lack of opinion, people with brilliant ideas come forward everywhere but putting those ideas into systematic development has become something that we see as immense unsolved task.

Doing what we were supposed to do could have taken us all into entire new level however the ground reality does not reflect the tangible picture as shown in the documents. The problem with the leadership is everywhere, politicians prefer populist speech and populist speech does not count little and important tasks that needs accomplishment rather prefer hypothetical agendas that can entertain mass.

It’s high time that the country needs to think on those small and minor issues that can make tangible effect on the picture and correct our working pattern. World is a common ground where every country is competing with one another for quality and performance to embrace the benefits that this industry offers. It is only us and our commitment that can change the scenario.

Amenities: Sometimes people wonder, Nepal a strategic location between such a huge population south and north keeps us away from all the possibilities. The reason behind these faded hopes is nothing more than our incapability’s to develop appropriate destinations and facilities according to the time spectrum. What if we had cable cars connecting snowline in all our five development regions? Do we have to worry about tourists from hot and humid India?

Ambiance: When tourists from third country enter Nepal via India they hardly realize if they have entered the new country. Border check point performance is under the benchmark and if any tourist without realizing that it had entered Nepal goes back to India will definitely think that the person never entered Nepal, so grumbling hear in Kathmandu that “Buddha is born in Nepal” is like an irrational statement. All Nepalese are well aware about the strong ambiance one has to come across when visiting Tatopani through Miteeri Bridge. Unless we create similar ambiance while entering Nepal no tourist will realize where they are, so naturally if the ambience is created in the entry point we don’t have to spend millions in marketing and the message will flow naturally to concerned stakeholders and visitors.

Brand: Advertisements are no more effective in tourism marketing though it does still have some impact. “Word of a Mouth” is indeed a vital icebreaker yet in the country like Nepal verbal recommendation from the tourist is not safe from their unprecedented ethical and unethical experiences. Introspection on experiences gained by the tourists for last 30 years and its analysis will tell us what impression we have created in Nepal for the prospective new visitors. There were times during 70’s and 80’s that Nepal truly was natural and of course the guest were treated like gods as guided by cultural ethics. The worst and the best part of Nepal is that it is still not facilitated with modern infrastructures, which makes most part of the country no better than what it was before, so on this ground tourists can still enjoy Nepal as any tourists that had enjoyed Nepal  during 60’s and 70’s. However modern professional growth and exposure of Nepalese in the international market cannot be undermined in the recent years. There is no doubt that Nepal is desperately looking for the new brand that can be established and can be suitable for the country image. Bringing new words as brand or slogan may be easy but what is truly forgotten is that the brand and image of the country relies on the combined factor of all the variables that are involved in making this industry. Fragile structure, underperformance, unprofessional behavior may not support any beautiful combination of words that we put forward. There is no option and alternative to everyone’s collective effort to upgrade this industry the way we think is better.

Religious Tourism: Once one of the Vietnamese person came across the statement mentioning that Buddha was from Vietnam. In Thailand people think that Buddha is from their own country. Most of the Chinese have no idea where Buddha is from. These are not just mere mistakes they truly reflect how insignificant our performance is on the prospective market. Similarly most of the Indians have no clue that Nepal is the land of gods and sages. Many people who reside in Nepal are the true inheritance of those bloodlines. Nepal is not just the country of Hindus but also possess strong spiritual environment that can flourish mental peace and prosperity.

So what is sellable here in Nepal is not only the religious destinations and its value but the experience that one gets and can experience is beyond ones expectations. Diversity and practices in Nepal is more than an open university. One just needs to come up with open mind.

Cultural Tourism: Well Nepal definitely is poor in many economic terms but there is no another country in the world who can boost its cultural enrichment despite severe poverty. Surprisingly even at this poverty level people here are calm, tolerant, and ethical, contains high moral values unlike many developed countries. The term culture does not only indicate at what we practice now but also indicates what makes us do so that is different and is a lesson that can aware the world in many terms. Rites and rituals practiced in this country is very much related to modern terminology that intellectual society uses in abundance to create global awareness. Of course the present society is strongly influenced by the modern achievements however certain behavior practiced by the society is amazingly a lesson to all humans. 

Accessibility: There is plenty of typology in tourism that can be discussed about however any pristine location or place that is available as a product is not far from its inaccessibility. What if Pokhara was not connected with the roadways! So is the case of other destination that if possibly had access could have unimaginable breakthrough.

Product: It’s a lame idea to depend only on one typology of tourism. Our misconception that was built during 60’s is still at large on our minds. It surprising that we still strongly believe that tourists come for mountains and nothing else. Without realizing the fact that the tourists arriving for trekking hiking and mountaineering consists a very small portion and size in the world. This narrow mindset among the stakeholders has stopped us from going beyond normal practices and harvest the possibilities beyond horizons. 

Rabin Sapkota is a Program Supervisor of Masters of Hospitality Management Program in Nepal Academy of Tourism and Hotel Management (NATHM). Conducted in Affiliation with Tribhuvan University

Mt.Dhaulagari

Annapurna Range Nepal

Beautiful Mountain of Nepal 

Pokhara: Believed to be one of the most beautiful place on Earth (Nepal)

   

INTROSPECTION OF HOTEL INDUSTRY IN NEPAL 2015

Despite ample of opportunity industry which is overrated at all times comes to us in pathetic shape never like before. There were times when this industry used to boast its blissful status with less than half the tourists compared to now visited Nepal. At present earthquake that divested the industry and an Indian blockade that took the whole lots of hope in despair does not indicate any relevance to the management practice that we have been following at present.

What have we done? It is indeed always very easy to pin point at somebody else, politics, leadership, disaster, violence, unionism, whatever may be our answer that we may declare appropriate never solve challenges that we are facing at present. As a business, does this sector even have sufficient grooming to be called an Industry? What in the world will anyone do without diligent and competent human resource than to linger? When will we realize the fact? Of course employee turnover is high but is that the problem without solution? Yes the society has upgraded itself to 21^st century but have we ourselves seen problem from those prospective of new generation? How can we claim that the system established during sixties and seventies should still function?

Veterans of this country found it important to establish this sector as an industry much before many nations in the region and around the globe were not even close to the idea, however achievement that we have made all these years is nothing more than “a bubbles of reputation” nothing stable nor countable.

Lack of transformation in employee dose not only mean increase in salary, working environment and hours, holidays and facilities, job satisfaction, performance and appraisals these are only few components that has distracted newcomers in the industry.

Operational issues just provides a gloomy picture.

Human Resource: Nepalese people are famous all around the globe leading this industry except in their own country. Looking into details it’s not surprising to find many doing good as mid-line managers and even general managers of star hotels around the world. Sadly there are only countable managers that are capable of holding the post of general managers in Nepalese star hotels. Situation in this industry is beyond managerial analysis and is funny most of the time.

“Students who go to Five Star Hotel for their research gets the very humble answer almost every time:  We would love to help you but these issues are something we can’t address this time or there are no one to come into your contact so we can’t help you”.

Why these reactions are funny is primarily those who reply are most of the middle line managers and don’t exactly know what research mean to their organization and are afraid that their mere errors will be spotted or even the managers with higher education don’t have the confidence to understand what suggestions and feedback they might come across or most importantly what they are afraid is that the researcher might come across those loopholes and their deceitful activities which they have maintained with local government authorities. While doing so what this industry really is missing, is the billion dollar idea and suggestions that every new and young researcher brings to this industry and revive the worst case scenario to their own rescue and advantage. If competitive corporate culture was in existence these industry would have hired researcher to improve their weakness and improve themselves and now even when students on their own purpose come across them to find their rooms to improve and support the industry people on these sector not only show ignorance but also find it useless activity and are avoided most of the time.

Contemporary situation indicates best manpower are being consumed by banks and are screening significant progress in the region, however hospitality industry is facing massive brain drain and are unable to compete with those regions in the middle east which either don’t have much attractive pay scale. Looking at the reason beyond the cause reflects massive mismanagement within the industry. Hotels in Nepal does not have any trend nor culture to overcome employee turnover and the industrialists are happy thinking that they are able to exploit maximum from their employees unable to understand the fact that the overworked employee are counterproductive for the organization.

Hotel industry unable to upgrade its working culture and environment is facing massive ignorance from the prospective candidates produced from academic institution in the recent years. Traditional and classical working environment and culture in Nepal has compelled many diligent manpower to look for better alternatives in the global market and Nepalese hotels never come to their priority list. Solution is not only the payment, primarily hotel as an organization is unable to present the glamour that this industry needs, working hrs are terribly mismanaged, behavior are below standards as many employee are found to be overworking and management is busy fishing in the blurry atmosphere.

No matter how bleak this article must have been, if taken positively there are ample of Bright-side that can lead us to prosperity. If we are at worst condition due to various reasons there is no better opportunity than this to upgrade our systems and working environment to entire new level. 

Selling Experiences in Hospitality

“Athithi Devo Bhawa” This must have been the very first brand image that Nepal wanted to promote in tourism through Sanskrit axiom during seventies and eighties. Though never official this brand was quite popular and is immensely used among fellow entrepreneurs and professionals even today. What does Athithi Devo Bhawa indicate or mean can be a long discussion. However leaving all philosophical details behind it just means treatment to guests like gods. Why are they gods? Why should we treat them as goods, can again entertain unending paraphrasing for clarifications. Looking at our cultural practices it wasn’t wrong at any point to promote what we have. It gave ethical and moral empowerment to the industry and of course a good thought to go along with. Since the terminology is Sanskrit it is commonly used in Hindu philosophy giving way out to embrace ethics into practice.

Impressions were good during those times in seventies and eighties. Tourism was at its move looking forward to expand even when it was distinctly not clear on its course. Moments of truths and happiness were plentiful despite lots of hurdles an inaccessibility seen in the industry. Limited hotels and luxury that this industry offered had lots of positive word of a mouth spread among its potential clients which at the time was only the major marketing tool to promote Nepalese hospitality industry to the outer world. Though many things were not up to the requirement at least available facilities were up to the standard.

After 1990’s like all the industry tourism too was there to face all the ups and downs bestowed by the time.  Initial political practices after 90’s and immaturity did contribute to destabilize this industry without anyone’s notice. People’s revolution of maoist did add more to worsen the situation of hospitality industry which was looking forward to move ahead. People at the time were not conscious and aware enough to realize and calculate the loss that these political hurdles brought to the industry.

Introspection of all these years after 1990’s can give us multiple thoughts and ideology on the direction we have undertaken from the tourism perspective. It’s been twenty six years that we are in the process to make Nepal a better nation through peoples participation. Well there is nothing wrong with that, however if we account all the Nepal Bandha, Chakka jam, haadtal, and other bitter experience in total we have created pretty much nuisance in this country to spread enough obstacles for the hospitality Industry. This also means for all these years we have created enough negative impression about our country. The generation which collected best of Nepal in the past do not exist at present vibrant market to spared goodness of Nepal and help us grow with our tourism economy. Those people who visited this country for all these years and could have talked about their good memories are now talking about their poor experience during their stay. It is not a fluke when you meet people abroad they do praise the beauty of Nepal as well as share their bad experience that they have in their mind in a very positive way. “I did stay in your five star hotel and it had a good power back up” dose not only indicate the great achievement of the managerial expertise but also indicates that the person had awkward experience being in the country where we had terrible power cuts in the city and did not meet his expectations. Similarly the chairman of famous Blue Elephant chain restaurant in one of his conversations mention about the garbage problems that he had seen during his stay in Nepal. These are just few representative examples to imagine of how many and to what extent we have lost our potentiality and possibilities that could have possibly been earned in the industry. What are we selling now in Nepal? Of course the world renowned heritage and natural beauty are there but in case of life time experience as compliment, and beautiful moments of truth that we expected our tourists to share to their countrymen is what we have failed to cash. What matters most in the present world to the tourist is not the commodities, goods nor service, in total it matters how good experience tourist is able to carry along with them. Yes sometimes all the chaos and disorder too can be an experience for the foreigner to understand the country like ours, however those experience are not sellable and are not productive enough for future references.

Gone are those days when one used to sell their commodities, goods and services. Now the era has already taken a long leap towards experience. The world is moving towards experience economy and is already much ahead in the global picture. There were times when one used to organize a wedding party at home and was helped by family members and friends, it used to be cheap and reasonable later commodification emerged, people looked for tent, cooks and few materials to outsource to complete their occasions and now we have Party Palaces where you pay fixed amount of money and get everything ready along with few complements being able to collect all the fun you need.

Who may explain better than those who have enjoyed Disneyland as a life time experience rather than just being in the business property? This does not necessarily mean that everyone needs to visit once. Nepal collectively is more than any business offered to anyone in any part of the world. Once I came across a person who was sharing his experience about his own incident as a tourist guide. He had to take the tourist for a trek in the mountain region and had unfortunately failed to guide him as he had an urgent call from his home. He decided to take the tourist in his house where his wife was prepared to give a birth to a child and was unable to attend the barren field to grow crops. Confused and in trouble the guide used the tourist to plough the field where bulls were used and involved him in his housework which was highly unethical but not illegal as we have no such laws to address the issue. He was prepared to face the worst at his travel agency. After couple of days of work he collected the guts to ask the tourist about the stay. To his surprise the tourist was more than happy and was excited about what he had just experienced. The tips and his remuneration was not only rewarding but brought his wild experiment to a new level of insight. This was not intentional nor was it supposed to happen. Many of these similar incident collectively has given a new start to creative thoughts and practices in Nepal. Inviting tourists to plant rice during monsoon, giving a wash to the elephants in Chitwan, developing the concept of homestay in Nepal are just the few commercialized experience among many that we can possibly develop. These practices that has been unknowingly initiated has shown us the possibilities of untapped opportunities that we can bring it forward to commercialize. This paves the way forward for us to conduct more and more research in the days to come and help nation to really boost its economy through creating incredible experiences in Nepal.

Recent research carried out by the Route Happy indicates that the travelers in UK are happier to travel in the airlines with multiple features rather than in the low-cost airlines with less facilities. Another research conducted on tripadvisor in the reasons behind the selection of best destination, amazing facts were revealed. It was found out that the selection of new destinations were rather based on their inquisitiveness for new experiences. That was the reason why more new destinations were getting popular rather than the traditional destinations of Europe and America. Harvard Business Review during 1998 had already written various articles based on experience economy, however the impact is realized now in the global market. Realizing the fact about experience, Hotels in Los Vegas Casino used the voice record of various stars who had performed in the hotel to give a wakeup call to provide new life time experience and it did work very good. Hospitality globally has already created a long epic on these professionalism. However in the context to Nepal we do have experiences that can be commercialized, abundance among various ethnic culture and society.

Experience that we can create with accessibility, product and service in itself is a powerful marketing tool to brand Nepal as powerful source destination. Sometimes doing nothing in comparison to trying everything can be a powerful message to promote tourism. What is doing nothing can be generalized in terms of not organizing Banda Chakka Jam and haadtal and other similar events that can damage our brand image rather than trying to do lots of things? Nepal a poor economy if only can remain stable, will achieve an unachievable goals in hospitality industry without any new investments. Concerned stake holders need to realize this in time. We don’t need any new investment to share our cultural practices in to touristic experience. Most importantly keeping Nepal peaceful, clean, secured and pristine does not need any new investment. Only the strong political commitment to keep tourism away from all the possible disturbances can do more than a billion dollar investment to enhance hospitality industry in the days to come.

Experience that Nepal offers is beyond ones imagination. 

Visiting durbar square in Kathmandu is not only to visit the historical monuments but is to enjoy live museum where one can experience primeval practices still helping people in the location to live their life. The beauty of the destination is beyond what it offers as heritage sites. The mystery behind tourists increasing in Nepal despite all these difficulties and discomfort is not because we have only monuments and sites, of course they do play a significant role however the experience that one gets beyond what is expected is the major driving factor.

It’s not amazing to find a stall at floating market in Bangkok where after paying twenty baht you can feed a goat. Well in Nepal too one can feed fish in Siddhipokhari and many other similar sites and can also feed pigeon in durbar square sites for free. “Honey hunter” chapter of Nepal did not only amazed the world but also proved the fact unanimously that the local experience from various ethnic group too can be a very strong sellable experience to offer internationally. What we all need to do as said earlier is to be able to find out our pristine practices and trends that can possible be accounted for the growth of national economy.

Will we be able to always sell the same experience?  We are looking forward to open new trekking routes and are desperate for it? Side by side are we able to introduce new product for memorable experience? If we are not able to design memorable experience on our product and are looking forward to continue similar experience we may not be serving anything new on the table. So just willing to open a new trekking route because the old one is having less repeated guest may not offer sustainable solutions to the business. It will not be wise enough to expect same tourist to visit similar trekking routs again and again.

Let’s for an example imagine that if a tourist in the trekking will have night halt in various hotels themed under various culture, or will pay separately for the natural hot water springs and water falls, goes feeding yaks after paying, pay separately for using animal rides, get culturally dressed to various ethnic groups may not only contribute to the direct income of the people but also will provide memorable experience that one can share with their circles.

What we need to do more in the days to come is, find out more tradable opportunities from the indigenous practices so that people can really feel the diversification of Nepal not only in words but also in practice.

References

Anderson, T.D. (2007). The Tourist in the Experience Economy. (Sweden: Goteborg University).

Gilmore. H.J., and B.J. Pine II (2002). “Differentiating Hospitality Operations via Experiences: Why Selling service is not enough”. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 43 (3):87-96.

Khanal, R. (2001). Democracy in Nepal: Challenges and Prospects. Kathmandu, Smriti Books

Pine, B.J. II., and H.J. Gilmore (1998). Welcome to the Experience Economy. Harvard Business Review.

Sharma, P.R. (1983). “Nepali Culture and Society: A Historical Perspective”. Contribution to Nepalese Studies. 82(10), 1-2.

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