-Binay Bazracharya
A hotel is often described as a ‘home away from home’ or defined in general terms as an establishment whose principal purpose is to provide meal and accommodation as required by the traveler. Besides these preliminary facilities, the bigger hotels offer other amenities like business centre, conference facilities, souvenir shops and recreational features such as swimming pool, tennis court, health club, casino etc. A hotel may be given different names like Inn, B&Bs, Guest House, Resort, Motel, Airbnb etc. Depending upon the size the hotels are divided into 4 categories namely small, medium, big and mega hotels. First 3 categories of hotels exist in Nepal but we still do not have a mega hotel in our country. The huge mega hotels have 600 or more guestrooms in them; some of huge mega hotels are ‘First World Hotel’ (around 6120 guestrooms), MGM Grand Las Vegas (around 6850) etc. One can find these huge mega hotels in various countries but several of them are concentrated in Las Vegas, USA.
Our country also has well managed big hotels like The Soaltee Kathmandu (around 300 guestrooms), Hyatt Regency Kathmandu (around 300) etc. By and large, hotel industry is well developed in Nepal; having said that, we should not ignore the scope for improvement in service and quality of the hotels. It would be commendable if the human resource department in hotels invest some fund towards training the staffs. The Hotel Industry is a part of larger undertaking known as ‘Tourism sector’.
People travel from one place to another within the country or abroad for various reasons such as business, educational trip, entertainment, sporting event or simply recreation. Once we make up our mind to travel, we need a ‘mode of transport’ to reach the desired destination say for example ‘Thailand’. When we reach the desired destination, we need place to stay and eat so we check into the hotel for ‘accommodation’ and the restaurant for ‘food & beverage’. Once well settled in the hotel, we go for sightseeing to various touristic places, parks & museums. After several days of sightseeing before coming back to our home country, we go to buy gifts in the shopping malls for family and friends. This act of choosing a destination to visit, arranging mode of transport to arrive at chosen destination, selecting hotel to stay, choosing place for sightseeing, purchasing souvenirs in the market and finally coming back to one’s own country make up the ‘Tourism Cycle’.
Nepal is a popular destination for tourism and offer round the year activities for tourists. We have top 10 UNESCO world heritage sites in the country like Kathmandu Durbar Square, Patan Durbar Square, Bhaktapur Durbar Square, Lumbini – the Birthplace of the Lord Buddha, Chitwan National Park, Sagarmatha national Park, Pashupatinath Temple, Swayambhunath Temple, Changu Narayan, Boudhanath Stupa. Pokhara, Janaki Temple (Janakpur), Nagarkot, and Dhulikhel etc, are also famous tourist spots. Also 8 out of 10 highest awe-inspiring peaks exist in our country. Nepal offer various activities like mountaineering, trekking, bird watching, rafting, adventure sports (bungee jumping, paragliding), cultural sightseeing, cross cultural experience through ‘homestay program’ etc.
For further development of travel and tourism in Nepal, we must improve our National Airlines and increase air connectivity with few more cities around the globe. Apart from existing touristic places, it would be good for the country if we could gradually develop a new tourist destinations like ‘Chandragiri Hill with Cable Car’ within our nation so that we could offer variety to the visitors. Like our neighbors China and India, Nepal should focus on infrastructure development as this beautiful country has lots of potential. Many reputed international hotel chains are coming to Nepal. Nepal Tourism Board is doing good job in promoting Nepal as the tourist destination. But with a little more effort, they can do better and bring in more visitors from international tourist market through appropriate ‘sales and marketing’. The tourism sector is gradually bouncing back after existential crisis called ‘COVID-19’.
The tourist coming to Nepal would appreciate if we could keep our cities, villages and touristic places cleaner and greener.
Like in many other countries ‘Tourism’ is large enterprise in Nepal which generate lots of employment opportunities and foreign exchange for national economy. Various government and private sectors are involved in development & promotion of ‘Travel & Tourism’ in Nepal, like ‘Ministry of Tourism, Civil Aviation & Culture’, HAN (Hotel Association of Nepal), NATTA (Nepalese Association of Tour & Travel Agents), TAAN (Trekking Agent Association of Nepal) etc.
– Thank you
