Envisaged for Sustainable Rural Development: Viability and Challenges of Rural Tourism in Nepal

Abstract

Rural tourism is a lucrative business with many financial, environmental, and socio-cultural benefits however; the development of rural tourism compared to urban tourism is faced with numerous challenges related to its practicability and sustainability. The aim of this paper is to trace the viability and challenges affecting the motivations of rural tourists, in an attempt to improve the understanding of rural tourism motivation for the development of rural tourism in Nepal. The major argument of this paper is that rural tourism though based on need and right based concept, is lately introduced practice and one of the immense areas of entire tourism in Nepal. Principally, it is need based approach because underdeveloped rural area needs to have more jobs created and revenue to be generated. The rapid environmental crisis in urban areas mostly in Kathmandu and other big cities is widening the scope of the rural tourism outside the urban areas. As a phenomenon, rural tourism is related to natural environment, hill, mountains, agricultural terraces, river, rural society and countryside households representing conservation, life style free of cultural pollution, experience, adventure and above all benefit to the local people. A sustainable rural tourism is the product of the careful planning, management and monitoring of tourism development. This study highlighted the evolution of a new way of thinking about development in the form of the rural tourism sustainability paradigm, its viabilities and challenges. The application of the concept of sustainability to rural tourism development was traced, and some of the initiatives of the rural tourism industry were distinguished, culminating in emphasis of the fact that effective planning and implementations are crucial to the long-term economic, social and environmental sustainability of a destination and its rural tourism industry. However, local communities’ inclusion as more active participants in rural tourism development may result in increasing conflicts between them and other stakeholders, including urban tourism, government at local and national levels.Repositioning Vol.1(1) 2016: 37-52