International Tourism System: Lumbini

Running head: INTERNATIONAL TOURISM SYSTEM
INTERNATIONAL TOURISM SYSTEM
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Running head: INTERNATIONAL TOURISM SYSTEM
Introduction
The main of this essay will be to discuss about the international tourist system of
Lumbini, a world heritage site situated in Nepal. The tourist visitations will be discussed in
here along with the processes which makes the destination attractive to the national as well as
international visitors. The positive and negative impacts of the place of Lumbini on the host
community will be identified and described, along with two major issues which happen at the
location related to tourism and destination improvement. Two policy implications will also be
identified. Lumbini is a religious destination situated in Mid-western region of Nepal. It was
listed in world heritage site on 1997, which is famous as a Buddhist pilgrimage. According to
the Buddhist tradition, Mahamayadevi gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama in 563 BC, who
later came to be known as Buddha (Teja 2013).
Tourism Destination
Nepal is one of the famous tourist places where a number of international tourists
come and visit the beautiful places of the country of Nepal, which can be said a region
surrounded by hills and provide beautiful picturesque views of the hills, mainly the Mount
Everest, the highest mountain in the whole world. In order to promote the tourism in the
country, a 20 year long strategic program under the Ninth five-year plan has been laid by the
government of Nepal (Ghimire 2014). The main aim of this program is to improve the
tourism of Nepal, which will help to attract more international people towards the country
and also to the city of Lumbini. With this program, the government of Nepal had focused the
aim to increase the number of foreign tourists in average of 12,48,000 approximately,
whereas the expected income from the foreign currency can be aimed at 1664 million dollars
approximately every year. The average staying of the international tourists can be extended
up to 15 days. The government of Nepal is very serious about this plan as they are focusing

Running head: INTERNATIONAL TOURISM SYSTEM
on this plan to uplift the tourism of Nepal, which is one of the highest visited countries in the
world. Great care as well as protection is required for this plan to become sustainable in the
marketplace. Lumbini, on the other hand is one of the major tourist attractions of Nepal.
Different kinds of activities are going on from various sides on this city to make it more
attracted to the international tourists. Most of the tourists come to visit this place because of
Buddha and Buddhism. It is one of the most important tourist destinations in Nepal from the
social and cultural aspect. It can be noted that the number of tourists who visited the country
of Nepal is near about 1,174,000 in the year of 2018. All of them are international tourists,
and it can be noted that the percentage has increased by 24% compared to that of 2017.
Another plan has been initiated by the Nepal Government, and that is Visit Nepal 2020
(Choegyal 2019).
From the above picture, it can be seen that the number of visitors are highest from the country
of India, and the rate has tremendously increased in the year of 2018 comparing to that of
2017 (Choegyal 2019).

Running head: INTERNATIONAL TOURISM SYSTEM
Attraction of Lumbini
The Leiper Model of Tourism focuses on three geographical elements in the model.
He considered the tourism phenomenon as a system, which can be functioned under different
environments; like human, economic, cultural, technological, socio, political, physical and
environment. The three geographical elements of the model are (Choegyal 2019):
1. Traveler Generating Region - It follows the push theory, where the factors
motivate the people to visit the places, like Lumbini in this case. These are the places where a
particular trip or journey commences or usually ends. Many tourists visit Lumbini in the very
first day of their visit to Nepal or the can end their travel by visiting this world heritage site.
This kind of journey usually takes a longer period of time and the tourists tends to spend
more time in Nepal due to this.
2. Tourist Destination Region – It follows the pull factor where the beauty of the
place attracts the people to visit those places. It helps to attract more foreign tourists around
the world. These are the places where the main visiting activities of the tourists happen. It is
important for tourist destination region to convey some special features which will help the
tourists to get attracted. Most of the tourists may come only to visit the place of Lumbini and
because of the rich social and cultural heritage of the place, mainly due to Buddha and
Buddhism.
3. Transit Route Region – It can be termed as the area between the tourist generating
region and tourist destination region. A temporary stoppage between the long journey is
called as transit route. It involves the short period of travel by the tourists. In this case,
tourists may stop to take some rest or to catch flights. This kind of situations should be
capitalized by the government of Nepal so that the number of visitors can be increased to visit
Lumbini.