Prospects and Challenges of Village Tourism Development: Madan Pokhara Village Development Committee of Palpa District, Nepal

Abstract

Today Tourism has emerged as the biggest and simple most important industry in the world. Even Nepal tourism plays a determining role in its economy. It has become a pillar for economic development in recent years. In this scenario, there is no doubt that expansion of tourism to villagers will contribute more to the economic development for the country like Nepal. Nepal has many attractions in the form of snow-capped peaks, excellent trekking and rafting opportunities, interesting wildlife, significant religious sites and culturally important sites. These have well- placed Nepal for tourism development. Village tourism is coming- up as a new concept for promotion and development of tourism in Nepal and it can give as an appropriate momentum to the tourism sector. This concept is more relevant in the context of a country like Nepal which is made up of villages and diverse ethnic groups with typical and unique culture and traditional life styles. Apart from these, this village tourism is possible without building up any concrete infrastructures. So it is a meaningful position that can give a boost to the Nepalese tourism. Similarly, Palpa is the district with great village tourism potentiality and Madan Pokhara VDC is one of the new emerging destinations of Palpa and Nepal in the form of “Village Tourism”. The concept of the village tourism development has been discussed in part one, followed by objectives of the study, methodology and tools used and assumption and limitation. It discusses about prospect and problem of tourism development in Madan Pokhara VDC. Whereas part two discuss about presentation and analysis of data, and part three concludes with recommendation and conclusion of thesis titled Prospects and Challenges of Village Tourism Development: Madan Pokhara VDC Palpa, District. The specific objectives of my studies are to analyze the present status of infrastructures, physical features, potentiality of village tourism in Madan Pokhara VDC as well as to analyze the benefit and opportunities receiving by local peoples. In this study I had adopted the accidental and stratified sampling method. Palpa district had wide potentiality in tourism sector, especially in agro-tourism but has not explore yet. Local people are not getting benefit from tourism sector in Madan Pokhara VDC. Finally, I recommended that the prospect of tourism in Madan Pokhara VDC has wide but to promote it has many challenges. These challenges have to be managed by government, private sectors, NGO/INGOS, as well as local people.