Tourism in the digital era: How changing lives

Pokhara, I was asked by a couple from the United Arab Emirates as to why we do not have $1,500 a night hotels as there would be lots from their country who would be interested.

Second, domestic tourism, which has been the bread and butter of many destinations in Nepal, has just exploded due to digital mediums. We hardly saw any sustained campaigns from any agency to lure local tourists, but then vloggers posting their bike ride videos on YouTube, Instagram and now TikTok have changed the fate of Nepali domestic tourism. People like Sisan Bainya have taken production quality seriously, and people want to follow him to the places he and his team have been.

Imagine Nepal is capturing such imagination of Nepali travellers. With a diaspora population of over 5 million, excluding India, across 180 countries, we will see a considerable demand surge from Nepalis visiting for religious or social purposes or just embarking on pure fun! For the domestic tourists, with the easing of payments through digital platforms, it’s all digital. Be it finding a destination, making bookings, paying for it, writing reviews and then posting about your trip. With more women joining the workforce, nuclear families and the concept of holidays not being limited to playing cards and drinking will significantly increase domestic tourism growth.

Third, the biggest challenge for Nepal to manage would be to ensure tourism has sustainable growth. The littering of trekking trails with cans of alcoholic beverages, bottles of aerated drinks and many other packaging materials is a huge issue. Structures are mushrooming everywhere to house travellers without proper planning. Everest is a golden goose we are killing by selling it too cheap. We have to think of the destination as super high-end. With a fragile ecology and biodiversity, we need to conserve; we need to use the same digital platforms to spread messages on pushing sustainable tourism. We have the commitments we made at COP26 to remember and the government’s Green Resilient Inclusive Development Action Plan to bear in mind.

Virtual reality

Finally, we need to prepare for tourists who will want to get to Nepal without actually getting to Nepal. With virtual reality and augmented reality becoming the future, with the Metaverse becoming the future real estate, we need to be there. We need to exploit these platforms to attract more people coming in person. We need to create that buzz of a destination that people will yearn to visit as we are one of the most photogenic countries in the world.

For all this to be leveraged, we need it to be private sector-led and come out of the shells of cartels, and we need the government to continue to provide a legislative and regulatory environment that facilitates these developments rather than thinking of stifling them in the name of controls. In many countries, governments have relied on self-regulation as a governance model. This is mainly due to the unique features of online content. Technology allows an individual to make an informed decision about how, when and what content they consume. We have missed many previous waves of disruptions, this one, we should not.

courtesy: The kathmandu post