Impact of Earthquake on Tourism in Nepal

Nepal's tourism sector was severely impacted by the earthquake, leading to a significant decline in the country's economy. The disaster damaged many historical and cultural heritage sites, affecting employment opportunities and contributing to a downturn in the tourism industry. The research aims to understand the impact of natural disasters on Nepal's tourism sector and provide suggestions for reviving the industry.

1 TITLE OF THE PROJECT
The research topic is “Effects of earthquake on tourism in Nepal”.
2 Terms of Reference
It will shed light on the tourism industry of Nepal because during its critical phase several
historical locations lost their existence. It has direct impact on visitors as the incident create
fear among them.
2.1 Purpose of the study
The main purpose of the current study is to analyze the negative impact of earthquake
on tourism of Nepal. This research also try to find out the positive impacts such as dark
tourism. However, tourism of country is the major source of income and great contributor of
economic development. Earthquake has caused the substantial slowdown in the tourism
sector of Nepal as most of the population of country is depend upon the tourism sector as in
2014, this sector has generated 487500 jobs (Nepal Economic Forum, 2015). Thus, the
current research will assess the potential impact of natural disaster on the overall tourism
sector of Nepal.
2.2 Methods
The present research will be based on qualitative and quantitative aspect as collected
data will be analyzed by using thematic and descriptive analysis. The research will be done
by collecting primary data regarding the impact of natural disaster on tourism sector of
country. This information will support in knowing how earthquake has adversely affected
Nepal tourism.
2.3 Expected outcome
It is expected from the present study that earthquake has direct impact on the natural
beauty of country. Conducting research on this topic will help to assess the outcome that how
the occurrence of natural disaster in the tourism place makes impact on number of arrival of
tourism, income generation of people and also on economy of developing country, Nepal.
3 BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
3.1 Academic areas and general business context of the problem
The current research problem will cover the effectS of natural disasterS on developing
phase of country as Nepal. It assists tourism and travel industry to analyze the factors which
could hampers its performance and accordingly they can plan for growth and development.

Furthermore, research problem is also associated with other sector of nation like education
and academic background.
3.2 Business context of problem
There is greater role of tourism in economy of Nepal, as it is one of the best tourism
place in the world (UNISDR, 2015). Impact of earthquake on Nepal has made greater impact
on the business of tourism which includes different sectors such as hotel industry,
transportation and shopping. With the help of researcher will reveal the impact of earthquake
on Nepal and also that how Nepal can again developed as one of the best tourism place in the
world.
3.3 Purpose of the proposed study
The purpose of the proposed study it to shed light on present situation of tourism in
Nepal. It will provide overview about the negative impact of recent disaster on incoming of
tourists and its direct impact on employment of country. Thus study will be cover following
research questions:
3.3.1 Research question
How the earthquake/ natural disaster affected tourism industry of Nepal?
3.3.2 Research aim
To investigate the impact of earthquake on tourism industry of Nepal.
3.3.3 Subsidiary research questions
The research questions for the current study will be formulated as follow which helps
researcher to gather necessary information and fulfil the research purpose.
 What is the impact of natural disasterS on tourism industry of THE country?
 How THE earthquake affected tourism sector of Nepal?
 What are the different ways through which Nepal can take some suggestive measures
to redevelop the places of tourist attraction?
3.4 Significance of the proposed research
The current study on effect of earthquake on tourism in Nepal will be helpful to
uncover different ways through which destroyed structure of tourism can be preserved. It will
also try to find out the positive rays for tourism after devastING earthquake. Apart from this,
present study facilitates to bring improvement in the overall hospitality industry of Nepal.
4 LITERATURE REVIEW
4.1 Introduction
The literature includes in-depth information related to topic under investigation. In the

present study secondary data will be collected in accordance with formulated research
objectives. It will help to understand the research issue or problem in precise manner.
4.2 Impact of natural disaster on tourism industry of country
The natural disaster affect the country's tourism sector to a great extent. It has direct
relevance with the attractive location and natural beauty of the same. Lu and Nepal (2009)
asserted that earthquake is directly associated with land which destroy the lucrative places of
nation in very less time. Firstly, the project will focus on impacts of natural disaster on
tourism in other countries like Haiti and Indonesia. The study will use books, journal, article
and online sources.
4.3 Effect of earthquake on tourism of Nepal
The earthquake of Nepal left the tourism in loss or even at the ending phase. This is
because it has made impact on overall economy of the country (Mishra, 2015). It had adverse
impact on the historical places of the country and also on the entire tourism sector (Hough,
2015). The adverse impact can also be seen on employment opportunities where in country
like Nepal tourism provides large number of opportunities to local individual and presence of
natural disasters such as earthquake can lead to low employment opportunities. According to
the report of Karnik, (2015), there were total seven heritage tourism websites in Nepal and
due to earthquake four heritage sites were totally damaged and also some of the architectural
destinations. In Nepal, tourism sector contributes greater percentage of employment for
people and also have key involvement in GDP of country. Impact of earthquake has created
trouble for the tourism sector and as well as for economy of Nepal (Parajuli and Haynes,
2015).
4.4 Conclusion
According to the above collected data, it can be said that earthquake had major impact
on the tourism of country which leads to downturn economy. Similarly, the most beautiful
creations lost their existence and some of them got damaged very badly.
5 Methodology
5.1Introduction
Research methodology is the important part of any study because it consists of range

of tools and techniques which will be used by researcher to collect and analyze the data
(Pennink and Jonker, 2010).
5.2Research Philosophy
In the current study interpretivism research philosophy will be used to understand the
social environment and accordingly gather the information (Corbetta, 2009). The reason
behind selection of this philosophy is to interact with multiple nature of reality and collect
relevant information.
5.3 Research design
The descriptive research design will be used for the present investigation so as to
collect wide range of data and to make an in-depth investigation of the topic (Zikmund, Babin
and Griffin, 2013). The use of descriptive research design in this study is to know the views
of respondents regarding the impact of natural disaster on tourism sector.
5.4 Data collection, analysis and presentation of results
There are two types which will be collected in the present report. These are primary
and secondary. Here, primary data will be collected with the interaction of tourists, tour
operatorS, trekking agencIES and official memberS of Nepal tourism board. Phone, email
and social networking sides will use for interaction. Similarly. Secondary data will be
collected by accessing number of secondary sources like journals, books and online material
(Freshwater, 2008). Furthermore, thematic analysis will be used to analyze both primary and
Secondary data. In addition to this, graphical representation of primary data will be analyzed
in context of themes (Khotri, 2008).
5.5 Sampling and ethics
Sampling refers to individual unit of population. Here, simple random sampling is
used to select the 50 respondents. However, tourists, trekking agencies, tour operator, hotel
and restaurant’s owner will serve as the population from which sample will be selected. On
the other hand, while collecting secondary information ethical aspect will be maintained
through accessing authenticate sources of information (Cooper and Schindler, 2010).
5.6 Conclusion
The aforementioned procedure and methodology will be helpful in generating huge
data. It will assists researcher to reach at the aim and accordingly develop valid suggestions.
6. PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Gantt chart:

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
The major problem of present investigation is that earthquake in Nepal put greater
impact on country's tourism business, however, it also impact the hotel industry, transportation
and business. Hence, this issue has affected tourism industry of Nepal as earthquake has
damaged most of the tourist places of country. The researcher will reveal the impact of
earthquake on tourism sector of Nepal and also approaches to provide suggestions to attract the
tourist towards the Nepal and the significant efforts of tourist industry to make Nepal as the
most attracted tourism place in the world.

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