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What if the future of Nepal’s tourism lies not in building new trails, but in rediscovering how we welcome people?
For decades, the world has known Nepal for its bravery and beauty—the courage of its people and the majesty of its mountains.

Yet beneath those summits lies a quieter, equally powerful strength: hospitality. From the warm “Namaste” of a villager to the tea shared by a stranger on a trail, Nepal’s identity has always been rooted in kindness. But as tourism grows, one must ask—are we still carrying that spirit as high as our peaks?

Adventure and nature-based tourism are expanding faster than ever. The global adventure travel market is projected to exceed $1trn by 2030, while Nepal welcomed over 415,000 international visitors in the first four months of 2025, many seeking authentic, meaningful encounters. In this new era, the competition is no longer just about altitude or adrenaline. It’s about experience—and the soul of that experience lies in hospitality.

Hospitality, however, isn’t only about hotels or service standards. It’s about behavior—the way we treat those who cross our paths. Do we, as Nepalis, truly enjoy hosting people? Do we take pride in sharing our home, our food and our stories? Do we greet a visitor with warmth or with the weariness of routine? Both the professional side of hospitality and the personal one matter. One builds an economy; the other builds emotion. And when the two drift apart, so does the essence of travel.

To understand where that gap may be widening, I chose to look closely at the Everest region — specifically Phakding, the village that greets trekkers on their first night of the journey toward Everest Base Camp. For most travellers, it’s little more than a resting point; for me, it became a window into how first impressions are formed—and how they can shape the image of an entire country.
Phakding lies quietly beside the Dudhkoshi river, its suspension bridges swaying like ribbons against the mist.

At sunset, the air hums with footsteps and laughter—a blend of excitement and exhaustion. Over five nights, I watched the rhythm of arrivals and departures, the quick exchanges between guests, guides and lodge owners — moments small yet revealing.

One evening, I overheard a young Filipino and his British friend talking to their guide. “Is the hotel in Namche better than this one?” the Filipino asked, hopeful. The guide, clearly experienced in climbing but not in conversation, replied, “It’s in the middle of Namche… top ten.” The guests chuckled: “So, the tenth of the top ten then.” It was polite laughter, but tinged with disappointment—cramped rooms, uneven bathrooms, Wi-Fi and hot showers that cost extra. The guide smiled awkwardly, unsure whether to explain or empathize. In that silence, I realized how much storytelling matters—how the right words could have turned complaint into curiosity.

Nearby, a group of Chinese women debated the price of beer. “Can we go out and buy it elsewhere? It’s too expensive here!” they laughed. Their guide could only shrug. The Everest region’s economy is complex: rooms are cheap to attract trekkers, but the costs rise in food and amenities. Everything here—every plate, plank and bottle—is carried on the backs of animals and people.

Zopkyo, the sturdy cross between yak and cow, and khachhar, the hybrid of horse and donkey, carry supplies along steep stone paths. Their bells echo through forests and clouds. Each item that reaches Phakding bears the mark of effort and endurance. And yet, few travellers ever hear that story.

It struck me then: if every meal came with its story, the experience would change. Imagine a host announcing, “Tonight’s dinner is prepared by young cooks from this valley — using ingredients carried on the same animals you saw along the trail today.” Suddenly, the price of a meal becomes not a cost but a connection. That’s what true hospitality does—it turns transaction into meaning.
What I witnessed in Phakding isn’t a failure; it’s a reminder. A reminder that Nepal’s greatest advantage is not infrastructure or altitude, but empathy. We don’t need to outbuild others—we simply need to out-care them. If we can pair the professionalism of tourism with the heart of Nepali warmth, we can redefine what visitors remember when they leave.

Phakding, in that sense, is more than the first night of a trek. It’s a mirror—showing us what the world first sees of us. But it can also be a destination in itself: a riverside retreat, a place where travellers and Nepalis alike pause, reflect and reconnect with the rhythm of the mountains. Perhaps that is where our tourism story must begin again—not at the summit, but at the welcome.

As I rode up toward Rimijung monastery above Phakding, I passed the small wooden house where Bikas, my horse caretaker, lives. It was simple but serene—a clearing that felt like a slice of heaven on earth. Bikas, a young man in his early twenties, has chosen to stay in his village and rear horses for trekking. Watching him, I felt both hope and concern. Hope, because here was someone who had found purpose in his own landscape; concern, because so many of his contemporaries from equally beautiful corners of Nepal now live in cramped rented rooms in Kathmandu, far away from their roots.

Bikas represents the future of Nepali tourism—not in infrastructure, but in attitude. We need more young people like him, who love their hometowns and see value in preserving their culture. Only when young Nepalis fall in love with their own land and stories will they become the kind of hosts who can show visitors a Nepal that is authentic, responsible, and deeply human.

The day I reached Rimijung monastery, a grand Lhabab Düchen puja was taking place—celebrating Buddha’s descent from Heaven back to the human realm after teaching the Abhidhamma, or higher philosophy, to the gods and his mother, Queen Maya Devi. As I stood among the monks, I noticed walls filled with centuries-old scriptures—each page carrying the wisdom of generations. They reminded me of the stories our country and culture hold, yet often forget. These are the stories that can retell Nepal’s identity to the world—stories of compassion, coexistence and courage that people everywhere would want to listen to.

For generations, Nepal has been known for its altitude. For decades, the world has known Nepal for its bravery and beauty—the courage of its people and the majesty of its mountains—for the summits that pierce the sky and the courage of those who climb them. But perhaps our next great ascent lies not in meters or milestones, but in mindset. The climb ahead is inward—toward an attitude of self-love, one that rekindles pride in our own stories—Nepal’s stories that the world longs to hear.

True altitude will only mean something if it’s matched by gratitude. When a traveller from across the world chooses Nepal, it isn’t just tourism—it’s trust. They are choosing to become part of Nepal’s story. That should fill us with joy, not routine. Too often, we measure success in the number of arrivals rather than the depth of their experience. Our goal should not be to attract more visitors, but to raise the quality of how we receive them—to lift our hospitality behavior to match our natural beauty.

People like Bikas remind us what this new attitude can look like. A young man who stayed in his home village, raising horses along the Dudhkoshi, Bikas’s open-mindedness and contentment reveal a truth we’ve forgotten: happiness doesn’t have to be imported. It can be cultivated right where we are. If more young Nepalis embraced that mindset—to live with curiosity, pride and purpose in their own hometowns—Nepal’s tourism would no longer need to be “developed.”

It would already be thriving through love.
At Rimijung monastery, as monks chanted for Lhabab Düchen and the walls shimmered with ancient scripture, I was struck by another realization: we must rediscover curiosity about ourselves. Our stories—once whispered through valleys and carved into temples—are fading from our own memory. Yet these are the stories that can once again enchant the world, if only we learn to ask the right questions and tell them with conviction.

To every guide, host and agency shaping tomorrow’s Nepal, the climb is clear. Take pride in being Nepali. Learn from the world’s best storytellers, then become one for your own home. The true spirit of hospitality is not service—it’s storytelling with sincerity.

The world will always come to Nepal for its mountains. But it will return for its warmth. Our next great climb is not to the top of Everest — it is to the heart of who we are.

Multifaceted efforts have been made toward tiger conservation, and Nepal today boasts over 355 tigers in the wild. In 2010, this number was only a third of it—at 121. However, conservation of this umbrella species seems to have created new challenges in human-animal conflict management across the country’s national parks.

Tiger attacks on humans have more than tripled in the last 10-15 years and Nepal seems to be at a crossroads when it comes to managing human-animal balance. Efforts to control this conflict seem to have even challenged the country’s capacity to define development with nature in the balance. On May 14, I visited the Devnagar Tiger Rescue Center in Chitwan and came out with mixed feelings of the direction conservation was headed in Nepal.

The rescue center is primarily meant to keep and conserve ‘troublemaker tigers.’ At the gate, I was told that some 150-200 people have been visiting the center daily since its opening earlier around the Nepali new year. The plan is to reinvest the money raised from ticketing this conservation-tourism effort back into the operations of the rescue center.

All of this was good news, but when I actually went inside, my heart sank. The center seemed too small and cage-like. According to a report published in a daily on May 14, the center covers an area of around 4000 square feet. Separated into two rooms, with indoor and outdoor spaces, two male tigers are kept in this mini-enclosure. I spoke to some of the guides, who had brought in guests, mostly Indians and Nepalis, and one of them mentioned that those running the center ought to accommodate spaces for the tigers to hunt naturally so that when and if the tigers are considered rehabilitate-able into the wild, they can adapt. According to the Wild Tiger Health Project, tigers in rehabilitation should have an enclosure, which is ideally a large (> 0.5 hectare), natural area with good shade trees, plenty of vegetation providing cover, a varying terrain, a pool for bathing and a natural stream system to ensure a clean water supply.

However, I’m really not sure what a rescue center envisions for the rescued  tigers' future, if not rehabilitation into its natural habitat. There is plenty of space around the rescue center to build a larger enclosed nature-like habitat for tigers. I’m assuming it may lack budget, which is the main reason behind the establishment of a small enclosure.

I was also feeling hopeful that ‘conservation tourism’ could actually be quite a larger than life segment for Nepal's tourism industry. But it must be done correctly rather than conveniently. Imagine a tiger in a much larger ‘natural-looking’ space, not immediately visible, guests on binoculars searching, brochures in their pockets that introduce the tigers story and its journey, etc. 

 I must also acknowledge that the government has tried to manage human-animal conflict quite well because rescue centers are only a part of the larger puzzle to conserve and manage flora and fauna in Nepal. Fifty-nine people have died in tiger attacks across various national parks in Nepal since 2018, according to government sources. In 2021-22, tigers killed 21 people, whereas some 10 years ago (2012-13), five human casualties had occurred in the course of conflicts with tigers.

For comparative analysis, more people die because of mosquito bites than tiger attacks in Nepal. According to the Journal of Travel Medicine, mosquito-borne diseases killed more than 55 people in Nepal in 2022. But tigers, not surprisingly, seem to draw more attention, the feline has magnetic charisma, which we must understand and consider in our analysis of human-animal conflict management.

Most tiger attacks have been happening on the outer edges of jungles where weaker tigers roam. Human habitats, which not surprisingly are closing into jungle spaces, mostly witness these encounters. In Meghauli last year, a young mother not even in her 20s died in a tiger attack while foraging the buffer area early in the morning to pluck wild spinach (‘niuro saag’).

Soon after the news of the attack/death spread, locals rioted and demanded park authorities to take the tiger into captivity and relocate the ‘human-eater’. Locals refused to take the body of the young woman out of the jungle until authorities took the tiger away. Local politicians even gain popularity for getting tigers caught and relocated, making tiger attacks a political affair.

Therefore, let’s understand that it is still not too late to envision better rescue and rehabilitation centers. We should  look at the Devnagar rescue center as an example of what is in progress to not only manage human-animal conflict but also an effort to attract quality tourism into a new sphere of “conservation-wildlife tourism” in Nepal. Hopefully, visitors who come to the center will not only be first and last time visitors but wish to be a part of the animals rescue and rehabilitation journey. Hopefully more visitors come for educational purposes and to be a part of quality conservation efforts in Nepal.

It should even be possible to turn the rescue of tigers into a movement. Well-documented visuals and stories through dedicated national broadcasts for conservation tourism could enrich Nepal’s ongoing engagement with tigers. People from across the world could play a part in raising awareness and money to support our government in its efforts to manage human-animal conflict. As Nepal tries to navigate into quality and modern conservation efforts, possibilities are endless, if the right course is taken.

Better shelters and management will surely contribute to a positive conservation tourism sector and attract not only visitors for wildlife tourism (165,000 visitors were recorded at the Chitwan National Park last year), but also for quality wildlife conservation tourism across Nepal's several national parks and conservation areas. However, for the time being, I am left wondering as to what the future holds for the two tigers I saw.