Over Tourism In Nepal | Causes and Solutions

Over Tourism In Nepal And It’s Mitigating Measures.

Tourism is an activity of touring. It is travel for recreation, entertainment, business or other purposes to different places from one’s usual spot.

What is Over Tourism?

Over tourism is a circumstance when a specific touristic place becomes overcrowded by tourists. Or let’s say it’s a gradual undesirable change of a particular popular destination. It is an unappealing phenomenon where a destination becomes crowded with tourists in an unsustainable way resulting in congestion, pollution and affects the lives of local peoples.

Many countries have been in this problem and some are in the cart list. Countries like Japan, Spain, Croatia, Hungary, Iceland and many more are affected by this problem. It’s good when a large number of tourists visit a place, it helps in fostering country’s economy, provides job to the locale, helps in developing infrastructure but when this number starts increasing in an unpleasant way that becomes a great problem. This large number of tourists can hamper a tourist destination in severe ways.

Consequences of Over Tourism.

• Results global warming
• Increases litter and pollution
• Increases traffic
• Can lead to destruction of natural habitats
• Can lead to destruction of heritage and monuments
• Increment in crime rates
• Increase inflation
• Security Issues
• Tourists satisfaction may not meet with their destination image
• Disturb lives of local peoples

Is Nepal facing Over Tourism?

Nepal set elevated quantities of 1 million voyagers in 2018 and is thinking of 2 million massive number by 2020. Remember in 2014 Nepal had around 790,000 tourist arrivals. Nepal, nowadays, continues pushing for an ever increasing number of vacationers to arrive. At the very now infrastructures of Nepal, if the projected number of tourists arrive; Nepal is surely going to face over tourism.

What is the most extreme number of tourists, Nepal can deal with? This is the emerging question for Nepal right now. And the answer is very less. Because we do not have nationwide standards, good hotels, good roads, good internet and anything that has a relation with ‘good’.  The capital of Nepal: Kathmandu faces water problem, good roads are rare to see, the congested jams and pollution don’t make anyone happy at all.

Any way, when we take an average, we are not facing that massive number of tourist traffic nationally. However, we are facing such traffic on a season basis and some specific destinations. Some destinations in seasons become overcrowded by tourists. Same is the case when some Jatras or other events take place. Such high traffic of tourist has some severe bad impacts on natural as well as manmade heritages of Nepal. This high number of tourist act as a negative catalyst to increase pollution, crime rates, inflation, destruction of nature as well as other heritages and ultimately disturb the healthy life of locales.

While looking for a short term economic gain, we shouldn’t forget that this massive number of tourists can be problematic in the long run. Such a high number of tourists are not good in anyways; so they are to be appropriately managed by the government and concerned authority. However, Nepal is not severely affected by the problem of over tourism, but with the emerging market of tourism, Nepal is also facing some signs of it. Himalayan base camps are starting to get crowded and littered; national heritages are not well managed to carry massive traffic of tourists.  So a firm policy must be formulated and implemented by the government on the very same issue. The government should work on developing and marketing new tourist destinations all over Nepal, such that this high number of tourists can be distributed and managed properly. Also, this helps in decentralization and uniform development of our country. During the high seasons when human traffic is supposed to be increasing, the government should be strict on visa issues and decrease the international tourist demand. The government should also focus on developing new tourism types that have fewer impacts on biotic elements such as Sustainable Tourism, Responsible Tourism, Alternative Tourism, etc. Using idea and tactics of reducing locomotive facilities and increasing the cost of products can also be a way to reduce the number of tourists. However, it doesn’t seem that ideal and logical.

What are the Controlling or Mitigating measures of Over Tourism?

• The government should formulate and implement strong policies and rules regarding the very issue
• Collaboration with the stakeholders
• The government can make the visa procedure strict to limit the number of international visitors
• The government should work on developing and marketing new tourism destinations
• Giving priority to a new form of tourism that has less impact on the environment and human settlements. Example, sustainable tourism, alternative tourism, etc.
• Increasing the cost of the product
• Reducing the transportation service
• Tourists can do a tour during off-peak periods.
• Education and Awareness
• Tourist should act responsible and do an eco-tour
• Travel to off-beat places.