Problems and Prospects of Tourism in Darchula District: A Case Study Of Malikarjun, Vdc, Nepal

Abstract

Far-western development region including Darchula district has huge potentialfor tourism industry. This region has historical, cultural, religions and naturallyimportant different sites and most of them are unexplored and unidentified.Government's role, plans, policies, institutional arrangements are important for thedevelopment and management of tourism. They serve several important functionsincluding tourism planning and development, coordination, marketing and promotion,regulation and control. These all are in crisis in the region. The main objectives of the study are; to explore the present situation oftourism, to analyze the trend of tourist arrival and status of local people in Darchuladistrict and to identify the problem and prospects of tourism in the study area. In this study the explanatory and descriptive research design has applied. Outof 36 VDC and 1 Municipality in Darchula district ward No.4 of Malikarjun VDCwas taken purposively and the 65 respondents (35 local people, 19 tourists and 11hoteliers) were selected as randomly. The major problems of tourist identified from this study in the region areproper consecration of nature, infrastructure and facilities development, lack of propertourism planning and implementation, poor implementation of existing rules andregulations, lack of marketing and promotion, lack of coordination between localorganizations. The major prospects of tourism identified from this study in the regionare: friendly people, natural beauty, historical sites, cultural diversity, religions sites,protected areas; market in abundance. In the study area there is one of the famoushistorical ancient and religious places of Nepal. Malikarjun Temple is one of the mostinteresting and historian for Hindu and Buddha. We can promote village tourism,religious tourism as well as community based tourism in this area. The otherimportant destinations areas are; Malikarjun Temple Area, Latinath Temple area, Apimountain area, Api Nampa Conservation Area, Gokuleswor Bazar,Darchula Bazar,Byasi Culture, Sitala lake, Mahakali River, Chameliya River, and Byas cave areaonly. The main conclusion from this study is that the proper co-ordinations,collaboration and co-operation must be necessary among the government bodies fortourism development local organizations, entrepreneurs and peoples for the tourism vii development of the region and district for the one of the main instruments andgovernment's role would be the most.