Potentiality and Challenges of Village Tourism: A Case Study of Sirubari of Syangja District

Abstract

This thesis entitled “Potentiality and Challenges of Village Tourism: A Case Study of Sirubari of Syangja District" has been prepared for the fulfillment of Master Degree in Rural Development from the Central Department of RD, TU, Kirtipur. It is based on the field survey in which researcher has dug out that tourism is one of the greatest industries in Sirubari. It is because of its natural environment mixing with cultural richness. World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited". Tourism has become a popular global leisure activity. In 2008, there were over 922 million international tourist arrivals, with a growth of 1.9% as compared to 2007. International tourism receipts grew to US$944 billion (euro 642 billion) in 2008, corresponding to an increase in real terms of 1.8%. 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 one of the best industries for Nepal because we have a lot of resources for it, not only because the world crowded countries are beside of us. So, for the sustainable national development, tourism is regarded as an efficient and trustful approach. This research has been conducted based on field survey applying exploratory cum. descriptive in which 10 locals, 10 tourists and neighboring villagers and 5 tourism related personnel were taken as sample. It is selected by using simple random sampling method. Major research methods used in this study are Households survey, Sample respondent's Interview, Focus Group Discussion, Key Informant's Interview, etc. This study found that animal husbandry and agriculture is the major occupations of this area. The predominant population used in the study said that low tourism infrastructures are the major problem for tourism development in Sirubari region. Similarly, the prospects of the tourism in this area are socio-cultural property, hospitality and natural setting. So, even if this area is regarded as the most important destinations, no sustainable strategies are conducted for tourism business in long run.