Prospects and Problems of Religious Tourism in Nepal A Case Study of RamnadiDham (Ramdi), MalungaTunibotVDC, Syangja District, Nepal

Abstract

Nepal is recognized as one of the important tourist destinations of the whole world. Tourism in religion and in natural areas has been a major component of national tourism sector in Nepal. Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries. Travel and tourism is a truly global economic activity. Tourism is an important sector to generate revenue in one hand and employment in the other for the sustainable development in our national economy. Tourism is emerging as the most viable industry of Nepal which has been providing direct and indirect jobs to many unemployed people and help to reduce poverty of the nation. The present study was conducted in Syangja District with specially focus to Ramnadhidham (Ramdi) tourism area. The main objective of the study was to identify important religious sites in area around the Ramnadhidham area of Syangja District and find out problems and Prospect of religious tourism. For this study descriptive and analytical research design have been adopted to obtain necessary information. Nepal, being one of the poorest countries of the world, is facing various problems such as rapidly rising population, fewer possibilities for developing industries, limited scope for increasing agricultural production, growing unemployment, social discrimination, poverty and so on. In this context, tourism has been regarded as a means of achieving social, economic development of the country. It is accounted that the three big industries of the world are Oil, Automobiles and tourism. In Nepal, the first two are not presently feasible due to the geography and lack of technical knowledge that is why the third big industry i.e. tourism is very noticeable. It is the not best because of that only but of the world crowded countries are side of us. So, for the sustainable national development, tourism is regarded as an efficient and trustful approach. For conducting the study data was obtained from the field using household survey, interview with tourist and hotel owners through questionnaire. 53 respondents have been selected as random sampling method. Out of them 30 were the local people, 20 were tourist and 3 hotel owners from the study area. Primary information have been collected during the field survey, household survey, besides key information interview 7 and observation as well as secondary data has been used. Other data was also collected from different sources such as, published and unpublished books, journal, articles and library. From the surveyed households was found that the majority of the people are from the Braman communities and they are mostly engaged in traditional agriculture. They have their own traditional and culture. The local people are unaware about the tourism activities. There is less efforts in promotion of tourism activities in this area. Awareness pogroms should be lunched in local communities and deferent facilities should be established for the satisfaction of the tourism to promote tourism in the selected area. For its betterment some suggestions are put forward like ,the tourism programme should be lunched in the study area ,for the employments generate .There should be monitoring and evaluation mechanism for the resources used in particular purposive as well as getting benefit from it. People who are in miserable conduction should be provided with various income generation activities and support with awareness program. The potentiality of tourist arrival in the study area is favorable in all season. During the study time some problems were also found in the study area. Tourism Centre is also not established for the tourists. Some other problems were also seen like absence of toilets, drinking water and well infrastructures are lacking in some extent. Being lack of these things also tourists can be seen in this area. The nation have also announced the study area as the tourism area. for the promotion of the tourism activities local NGO‟s DDC and some other organization are also working but the effort is not so enough. So, I think that my thesis work will also support to some extent for the tourism development. A set of recommendations, conclusion and suggestion have been made at the end of study.