In more than five decades, Nepal’s tourism sector has been rollicking in its cradle with almost all of it—hope, distress, paradox, and vigor. The good thing is the optimism the sector self-creates.
On the eventful day of December 31, 1997, the country witnessed an unprecedented departure to hitherto unknown territory of public-private partnership, challenging the dogmatic notion of red tape. While realizing the wind of change, a dream institution was born. The overdue energy of the private sector had just transfused into a symbol of empowerment. Then, the Nepal Tourism Board entered the scene. It was not an act of desperation; rather, it was a sincere contemplation to honor the knock-at-the-door in the wake of growing demand for market liberalization and open economic policy. On a serious note, the enactment of NTB in 2054 BS was not an easy ride.
Long before, in 1972, the Master Plan funded by German Cooperation presented and echoed an indispensable public-private partnership in Nepal’s tourism. Coinciding with the fourth five-year plan, the 1972 master plan advocated for comprehensive legal and institutional arrangements for tourism. While the tourism sector found its place under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, it was only in 1978 when the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation took flight with the wings of tourism and civil aviation. It was heartening to turn over the pages of the master plan, realizing how two major private associations—NATTA and HAN—took center stage in the plan in the context of statistical imperatives.
1950s: When the Theatricals Began Up in the Thin Air
The story of Nepal’s tourism in the decade of the 1950s was all about expeditions. It was more of a battle of giants—the British and the French. The French took over Annapurna while the British stamped their authority on Everest. It was nothing short of an Oscar-esque display drawing cinematic brilliance. After the drubbing and drowning of the Second World War, both colonial powerhouses looked to rise from the ashes. They chose the might and the mystery of the eight-thousand-meter peaks of Nepal. The battle turned and moved to Nepal from the Alps. June 3, 1950, was nothing short of a blockbuster. May 29, 1953, proved to be colossal—a feat compared to nothing less than mankind’s triumph over the moon in later years. In both cases, Nepal emerged as the winner. We took an international flight to global tourism. The mystery of the mountains cajoled the world. The spirit of the mountains embraced the best of the brave for the next 10 years.
It was a theater for some improbable acts of human spirit and skill, where the whole world kept its eyes glued for a miraculous play of bravery. The year was 1953—one of the biggest turning points in the history of mankind‘s bravery and skill with the ascent of Mt. Everest. It threw Nepal into the global limelight. For ages, Mt. Everest stood as testimony to mankind’s daredevil imagination. In 1953, a year after the Olympics in Norway and Finland, two of the finest gentlemen from New Zealand and Nepal were braving their way up into the thin air of Everest. Their triumph proved to be a major cultural turn in climbing history.
Being a relatively new democratic state in the aftermath of World War II, Nepal’s own foray into statehood entered a period of socio-economic paranoia. The euphoria of the ascent of another eight-thousander, the first in history—Mt. Annapurna in 1950—brought the country to top calibration and celebration much before the Everest saga. While the tiny Himalayan nation was caught in its own political struggle, its friendly citizens continued to look up to the mountains as a metaphor for life’s pursuits amid the global political chaos in the wake of the Cold War era.
While Nepal was caught napping in its own imagination as a sought-after destination in the new global limelight, the British regime had long been contemplating a universal claim to conquering the mighty and improbable challenge of climbing the summit of Everest. Facing the fading supremacy of the British Empire in the wake of a new global order after the Second World War, the empire had already funded eight expeditions to Everest, but to no avail. The ninth expedition, however, was a different story.
Now, Everyone Has Something to Do with Tourism: Tourism Has Become a Social Fact
The dawn of the era of travel and tour had just begun. The 1960s carved trails to the institutional strengthening of the tourism sector, particularly of private companies—more precisely, consolidating the early leaders who dreamed of pulling the strings together in travel and tourism. The incorporation of two of the largest institutions (still key by sheer volume and importance), the Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN) and the Nepal Association of Tour and Travel Agents (NATTA), kickstarted the formation of a spectrum of leadership and ownership in Nepalese tourism. Arguably, this happened before the state had woken up to the newfound global stare at Nepal. Nonetheless, for the state of Nepal, which was still in awe of freedom from an autocratic regime, such an act of fraternity by the private sector was a harbinger of leadership from oblivion. However, it took 15 years for our players to formally organize, whereas the Indians were already at the touchline with the announcement of TAAI (Travel Agents Association of India) in 1951.
Now entered the fourth five-year plan and the box-office hit—the 1972 Tourism Master Plan. It was no frantic scramble, but a well-thought-out initiative by the government of the day to pre-design the long road of tourism in Nepal. Supervised by German Cooperation, the plan laid out major strategic and pivotal underpinnings to structure tourism and civil aviation in Nepal. Kathmandu, quite obviously taking center stage powered by the country's only international airport, became the axis for eastward and westward tour, trekking, and pilgrimage round trips. Nepal’s effort to extend tourism beyond the mystery and mysticism of mountains coincided with the ascent to the throne of King Birendra. One astounding act of brilliance by the government was the enactment of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973. It proved to be a masterstroke as it invigorated the southern plains as a tourism attraction. It gave flight to Chitwan, and the rest is history. The 1970s was all about national parks—Chitwan, Sagarmatha, Langtang, Rara, and Shuklaphanta. In the context of their own eventuality, all these parks now form the core of conservation and ecotourism in Nepal.
The story propels forward now with strong plots. Enter the Tourism Act of 1978, repealing the Tourism Industry Act of 1964. The Ministry of Tourism was established with a strong mandate for regulating the sector. These proceedings were in line with the policy recommendations of the 1972 Master Plan. The review of the master plan in 1984 shed light on the active engagement of the private sector in hospitality and service operations, contributing to overall tourism growth in terms of both tourist arrivals and revenue generation. The decade-long progress of the 1972 master plan had fostered the expansion of tour-based activities along the eastward axis based on the Koshi River and the southeastern plains, as well as the westward axis based on the Karnali and Bheri rivers and the southern plains of Bardiya and Shuklaphanta. However, despite activity-based expansion in the plains of Nepal, administrative-structural bottlenecks remained a tough nut to crack in laying the foundation for the geographical expansion of tourism. The decade also witnessed another consolidation of the private sector in the form of the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (TAAN) in 1979, bringing policy lobbying for trekking tourism under a single radar.
1990s: The Decade That Changed the Rules of the Game
The start of the decade was charged with unprecedented opposition to the regime in Nepal. All of South Asia was under tremendous turmoil due to the need to jump into political-economic shifts toward open markets, economic liberalization, and structural reforms in the development economy. Nepal, too, could not resist the temptation of joining this new yet uncharted regime change. Amid the chaos, there came the Nepal Tourism Development Program. It strongly delved into three major areas: limitations on foreign capital in tourism, transport constraints, and inter-departmental coordination issues. The Constitution of 2047 (1990) guaranteed sovereign power to the people and changed the economic landscape. One notable departure into this new journey was the Tourism Policy of 1995 (2052 BS), which paved the way for establishing the Nepal Tourism Board. The existing Nepal Tourism Development Program had also made inroads to advocate for its creation. The draft of Tourism Policy 2052 had proposed the chairmanship of the Tourism Minister. This changed over the course of drafting, and the final installation placed the Tourism Secretary as chairman.
Nepal Tourism Board: A Long-Rehearsed Romance of the Private Sector
It was never an impromptu call to create the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), as it is affectionately called with much pride by the private sector. It is the pride of the private sector as they hold, technically and structurally, more than half of the stake in the board. For an economy like Nepal, the enactment of an institution with such a self-functioning, autonomous structure was itself a massive achievement for the tourism sector. We were frontrunners among many destinations during the 1990s in foreseeing such an outward approach to the tourism economy. We continue to surprise many by maintaining this one-of-a-kind, exemplary institution in Nepal. The proliferation of its essence has been sublime across every political epoch and rule. It has withstood the storms of chaos and conflict and has sailed through calm waters. It belongs to the private sector.
However, one of the most obscure paradoxes of our institution is that of its own empiricism. The plurality of reasoning for an institution of such acclaim and value must find its own propensity for long-held alienation. Though still young, the expectations of the private tourism sector have been both overwhelming and overarching.
The changing context of fiscal federalism presents an opportunity. The ramifications of comprehensively complex fiscal federal arrangements and the contours of overlapping political and administrative federal realms have been slowly but surely bringing future implications. The nascent federal state of Nepal has begun to experience a tangible foretaste of the potential consequences of its own profligacy. NTB, in its preface, is and can be an unprecedented opulence. Beyond the pretext, tourism in federalism still has its own story to write. The affairs of tourism continue, still rollicking—if not rocked and rolled.
