An Assessment on Prospects of Religious Tourism in Nepal (A case study of Lumbini in Rupandehi District)

Abstract

For the partial fulfillment of the course designated for central department of rural Development, the student has carried out the thesis work entitled An Assessment on Prospects of Religious Tourism in Nepal (A case study of Lumbini in Rupandehi District). So, the main objectives of the study is to find out the prospects of religious tourism in Lumbini having specific objectives are : to analyze the inflow of tourists arrival. To identify the potentiality of religious tourism in study area. To analyze the programmes and institutional arrangements related to religious tourism in study area.

In order to fulfill these objective, descriptive as well as exploratory and descriptive research design have been applied. The study has been under taken through survey and interviewing with tourist, hotel owners. Tourism related institution, hotels lodge and direct observation. Altogether 55 tourists were selected among 200, 25 hotel owners among 70 & 20 local people for focus group discussion. And both simple random sampling and judgmental technique had been applied.

The study has related with very interesting results. The number of tourist visiting in Lumbini was increased by 43.26% in 2007, most of the tourist visited Lumbini from Asian countries (42.74%) because of faith in Buddhism and mainly visited in winter season, the staying period of tourist in for 1-3 days (54.54%) visited Lumbini with the purpose of going on pilgrimage, as an attraction (36.36%) tourists love to see its historical monuments and then good archeology, temples (Maya Devi) because of its religious value, Lumbini is facilitated by every kind of facilities but it lacks proper management. Still local people are not getting benefit from tourism in Lumbini. There is high prospects of religious tourism in Lumbini in term of natural attractions and man-made attractions. Extra religious activities should also be done to lengthen the tourist stay in Lumbini with proper implementation of integrated tourism development, policies, plans and programmes.

Despite having a huge prospects for tourism development, there are still so many areas in Lumbini that are lagging behind in one or other way and we are in a urgent need of vigilance and promotion. In this regard, the researcher has suggested some measures, To be taken into consideration to capitalize tourism promotion in Lubmini. The following recommendations can be put forward to increase the overall attraction of Lumbini: Need for better and more comfortable access to the site, Need of more publicity and advertisement, Master plan designated by Kengo Tango should be completed in time without any delay. Improvement in security condition is needed for development of package tour program. Last but not least local people around the Lumbini area should be aware of properly in conserving the valuable area.