Impact of Rural Tourism in Ghale Gaun (A Case Study of Ghale Gaun, Lamjung District, Nepal)

Abstract

The study titled "Impact of Rural Tourism in Ghale Gaun, Lamjung District in Western Nepal" was conducted in Ghale Gaun located in Lamjung district. Tourism is the largest industry in Nepal, and the largest source of foreign exchange and revenue. Rural tourism focuses on participating in a rural lifestyle. It can be a variant of ecotourism. Any village can be a tourist attraction, and many villagers are very hospitable.There are lots of places of rural tourism emerging in Nepal.In term of Nepal, organized rural tourism was first practiced by Sirubari ,Bandipur, Ghandruk, Ghale Gaun villages, which was totally a new concept and ideas in Nepal. Ghale Gaun is a beautiful village of Lamjung distict, which lies to the northwest of Khudi at the elevation of 2095 meters. It is approximately 20.5 km North West of Kathmandu and 12.5km north east of Pokhara. Ghale Gaon once a sphere of Ghale kings before 18th century presently consists of 106 households comprising Gurungs, Ghales and some Chhetri and Biswakarma under Uttarkanya VDC, 1,2 and 3 wards. The overall purpose of the study was to identify the impact of rural tourism in Ghale Gaon. Impact on economy (monthly income), environmental change and social cultural change was identified by conducting a survey among household respondents, semi structured interview with the tourist and KII with the experts of rural tourism. Descriptive research design was used to conduct the study. Research Instruments like Survey questionnaire, semi- structured interview schedule and Key Interview Guideline was developed. Accidental sampling technique was used for sample collection with the tourist and a survey was conducted with the household respondents. Collected data was analyzed in SPSS version and data was calculated using descriptive statistics. For the reliability and validity of the instrument, continue consultation with experts, supervisor and literature review was done throughout the study .Similarly, Pretest with ten of the respondents was done in Nagarkot home stay . vi The findings of the study indicate that rural tourism has increased the daily income of the local residents and most of the people were attracted in this business. Similarly, the findings also indicate that slowly the concept of internal tourism is being emerged in our society. The local people could communicate with the foreigners and were also known with the culture of the foreigners. Unmanaged waste and littering was commonly seen as an environmental problem. At the same time, alcoholism and fight was mostly common in ghale gaun. Along with that the infrastructure of schools, house was also changed and modified. The result of the study will help to determine the impact of rural tourism in the life of the villagers and also helps policy makers in Nepal by providing required information. To conclude,there are various limitations and challenges to tackle in rural tourism business.At the same time, rural tourism is slowly taking its roots in Nepal.The continuous growth of rural tourism in recent years, however, has shown the positive sign. It can be taken into consideration that it holds the possibility even with a lot of challenges.