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Socio-economic Impacts of Tourism in Lumbini, Nepal: A Case Study
Pradeep Acharya∗
1.
Introduction
Tourism is a very familiar affair in human life. It has been an industry of vast dimensions and ultimately supports economic growth and social development. In order to promote tourism in Nepal, the ninth five year plan has made a 20 year long strategic programme. The main objective of this programme is to develop Nepalese tourism up to the desirable standard. As far as the 20 years long-term tourism policy is concerned, our government has decided to increase the arrival of tourists in average 12, 47,830 every year. And expected income of foreign currency to be 1663.6 million dollar every year. And the average staying of the tourists extended up to 15 days (Nepal Tourism Board, 2000). The Ninth five-year plan says the government is serious about the uplifting of Nepalese tourism, which needs great care and protection. "For the constant development of the Nepalese tourism, it has been commonly decided to give equal priority to some other factors, which do also affect the tourism sector directly. Such as development and expansion of tourism sites, necessary infrastructure for tourism, promotion of tourism market, improvement in civil aviation, protection of environment and involvement of private sector in the promotion of Nepalese tourism, etc" (The People’s Review 2001). Hence long term vision is to promote village tourism for poverty alleviation including ecotourism and domestic tourism. Recent development on tourism is highly concentrated on development of trained human resources which is based on quality of services provided to tourists. But many areas of the country are still deprived of basic tourism facilities. Lumbini is one of the major tourist destinations of Nepal, where different development activities have been going on from different sides. A Master Plan for the Development of Lumbini, including numerous engineering and archaeological studies was
Pradeep Acharya∗
1.
Introduction
Tourism is a very familiar affair in human life. It has been an industry of vast dimensions and ultimately supports economic growth and social development. In order to promote tourism in Nepal, the ninth five year plan has made a 20 year long strategic programme. The main objective of this programme is to develop Nepalese tourism up to the desirable standard. As far as the 20 years long-term tourism policy is concerned, our government has decided to increase the arrival of tourists in average 12, 47,830 every year. And expected income of foreign currency to be 1663.6 million dollar every year. And the average staying of the tourists extended up to 15 days (Nepal Tourism Board, 2000). The Ninth five-year plan says the government is serious about the uplifting of Nepalese tourism, which needs great care and protection. "For the constant development of the Nepalese tourism, it has been commonly decided to give equal priority to some other factors, which do also affect the tourism sector directly. Such as development and expansion of tourism sites, necessary infrastructure for tourism, promotion of tourism market, improvement in civil aviation, protection of environment and involvement of private sector in the promotion of Nepalese tourism, etc" (The People’s Review 2001). Hence long term vision is to promote village tourism for poverty alleviation including ecotourism and domestic tourism. Recent development on tourism is highly concentrated on development of trained human resources which is based on quality of services provided to tourists. But many areas of the country are still deprived of basic tourism facilities. Lumbini is one of the major tourist destinations of Nepal, where different development activities have been going on from different sides. A Master Plan for the Development of Lumbini, including numerous engineering and archaeological studies was
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