International Tourism Case Study: Namche Bazaar, Nepal

This case study examines international tourism in Namche Bazaar, Nepal, a key destination in the Everest region. It provides an introduction to the tourism system and the historical development of Namche Bazaar, highlighting its evolution as a trading hub and tourist destination. The analysis includes international tourist visitation trends, the factors that make the destination attractive, and the impact of tourism on the local community, including socio-economic and cultural changes. The study identifies key destination development issues such as pollution and limited local involvement, and critically analyses a tourism policy issue concerning sustainable mountain tourism development, including royalty fees, permit systems, and infrastructure challenges. The report uses academic sources to support the analysis and follows a structured approach as per the assignment brief.

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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the historical advancement of tourism for Namche Bazaar...............................................2
Analysis of international tourism visitation to Namche Bazaar.............................................................3
The attractiveness of the destination......................................................................................................4
Identification and critical analysis of influences of the tourism activity on the host community at
Namche Bazaar......................................................................................................................................5
Identification and explanation of 2 key destination development issues currently taking place at
Namche Bazaar......................................................................................................................................5
One tourism issue for Namche Bazaar...................................................................................................6
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
A tourism system is a conceptual approach helpful in recognising the dynamic fundamentals
of tourism. The tourism at present is viewed as tourism where theory and practices are
connected up with each other in order to address the satisfaction of all those apprehensive
with the working of the system. This report defines the international tourism. Namche as a
destination has been introduced in the report with the main themes. The summary of the
historical development of tourism for Namche market has been defined. The report also
includes the analysis of the international tourists' visits to Namche. The things have been
defined which makes the destination attractive and these are linked with the theories. The
impact of the tourism activity has been identified and critically analysed on Namche market.
Further, the report has identified 2 key destination advancement issues which are taking place
at the destination. Finally, one tourism policy issue for Namche has been critically stated.
Overview of the historical advancement of tourism for Namche Bazaar
Namche Bazaar is identified to be an entrance to the high Himalayas of Mt. Everest region. It
is a small town and is a busy tourist zone and trading hub. Namche is located at 3400-metre
altitude covering 18% of the hotels and lodges. Namche Bazaar is a stunningly beautiful
village developed into small and colourful market sells everything from required in the trip.
In spite of the prosperity, Namche has managed its antique culture, traditions and hospitality.
Namche is having abundant hotels and lodges along with three museums, a monastery and a
stupa (Acharya and Halpenny, 2017). The town is having a lot of trekking stuff. There is
Sagarmatha National Park at the end of Namche Bazaar. The weekly market is run on every
Saturday at Namche Bazaar. The market is specialised in selling agricultural products,
woollen clothes, butter, cheese, trekking gear, electronic items and more. Namche town is
deliberated to be an important part of Nepal tourism. The surrounded Himalayan peaks add
more attraction to the Namche Bazaar (Van Strien, 2018).
Main tourism activities in Namche are mountain climbing, trekking, rafting, hot air
ballooning, bungee jumping, paragliding, jungle safari, mountain flight, rock climbing and
ultralight aircraft. There is a majority of the mountainous environment in Namche. The town
is having a great number of lodgings catering to the need of the visitors. There are thousands
of domestics and foreign tourists who en-route to the mountain visits of Namche Bazaar to
enjoy the scenic beauty. The earthquakes took place in the town has damaged minor to the

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Namche Bazaar (Park, et al. 2016). Almost 250 private houses in the rural areas were
damaged along with the 150 residential houses. UN world Trade Organization support to the
Nepal government through the tourism strategy. The strategy comprises human resource
development, infrastructure development, enhancement of tourism quality, improvements in
the management, conversion of cultural heritage and zero-carbon targets. Namche makes sure
that the market grows sustainably by focusing on the high-end tourists who spend a great
amount on the quality services. It ensures that the minimal impact is put on the environment
and culture of the nation (Saarinen and Gill, 2018).
Analysis of international tourism visitation to Namche Bazaar
Namche is a popular tourist location
located of Khumbu located at 3400-
meter altitude. Namche is identified for
prospective and fertile land for trekking
and mountaineering. Main tourist
attractions of Namche are scored due to
Himalayan peaks comprising Mt.
Everest. Other than that there is the Sagarmatha National park. The tourist visiting national
park has increased in the last decade. The tourist visiting Namche has increased mainly in
1998 to 2015. Less number of visitors was realised in 2002, 2005 and 2015. The number of
tourists again visited was low between 2001 and 2007. It was due to Moist insurgency took
place in Nepal. The customers visiting Namche were declined in 2015 due to the earthquake.
It destroyed tourism concerning service infrastructures. The majority of the tourists visiting
Namche held mainly to UK, Netherlands, Western Europe, Germany and France (Jovicic,
2016).
The tourism growth in Namche leads to enhancement of the tourism business in the local
economy. People living in Namche believe that tourism activities taking place locally has
improved their source of income. The employment opportunities have also increased due to
the tourism-related businesses like lodges, hotels, climbing expeditions and trekking. The
major attractions of Namche comprise Sherwi khangba centre (Upadhyay, 2019). It is a
traditional Sherpa house which protects the Himalayan Sherpa culture. The artefacts are
preserved in the centre. There is also a Sherpa cultural museum. The Namche market is also
an attraction held on the Saturdays where people buy and sell agricultural products, electronic

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items and anything required during the visit (Shrestha and Jeong, 2016). The Dumje festival
also takes place at Namche paying high respect to Sherpa lama.
The attractiveness of the destination
Namche Bazaar has become a tourist hub and tourists can take cultural tours, do trekking,
mountaineering, meet people and can view mountains. Namche Bazaar has developed into a
small and colourful market selling Tibetan artefacts, trekking and climbing requirements to
anything required for the trip. The destination has been successful in maintaining the ancient
culture, traditions and heart-warming hospitality (Izadi and Mohammadi, 2016).
Tourism theories have a great role in making destinations attractive to students. The tourism
theories describe the tourist behaviour, their role, activities and motivations which influences
to the concerning industry. Traditionally tourism was deliberated as a luxury item. But the
concept of tourism got changed in 19th and 20th century to the domain as an exercise in leisure
(Upadhayaya, 2019). The modern tourism is just more than simple travelling and is
determined by demand and supply. The motivations for sustainable development are new
concepts like eco-tourism and existence of rural tourism. Some other motivations identified
are cultural attractions, attaining knowledge about new cultures, and education. The
motivation behind travelling is to predict consumer awareness (Demenge, and Shrestha,
2018).
The satisfaction is wanted by tourism through the relationship and connection of the elements
like activity, space and product. The tourists travel for the sake of recreation, diversion and
experimental reasons. The attraction theories of tourism depend on the type of tourisms like
psycho and allocentric. The tourists like to travel for short distances than the longer
destinations to go for the holidays. The attraction is the main aspect which pulls a person to
visit a destination. Therefore destination attractions are considered major factors of
destination attractiveness. The attractiveness is also predicted through the support services
and facilities. It plays a complementary role behind the success of the destination (Gössling,
2017).

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Identification and critical analysis of influences of the tourism activity on the host
community at Namche Bazaar
Nepal is a mountainous nation and is one of the famous destinations of the tourist. The
Everest region is the main destination for trekking and mountaineering. The number of
tourists has increased in Namche Bazaar. The growth of the tourist has resulted in socio-
economic and cultural significances. The tourism activities increased mainly in the 1980s to
`1990s. The trekking in the Himalayan areas has resulted in an increase in the number of
hotels and lodges. The economic life of the community has been also changed from agro-
pastoralism to tourism-based trade (Devendra, et al. 2018). The employment and income
level of the people residing in the same community has improved. The new values and
lifestyles of the people residing in Namche have been enhanced. It has even wrinkled the
major role of the religion and traditional value in the local community. The historical events,
political changes and administration events have put impact on the real condition of the
tourism concerning activities in the Everest region (Boniface, Cooper, and Cooper, 2016).
The major option of livelihood in Namche used to be agro-pastrol activities. But the growth
of tourism in the same area economy adopted more of the tourism business. Now the majority
of the people live in Namche are engaged in the tourism business. Their livelihood has been
increased in recent years. Some people have trekking business which organizes mountain
journeys throughout the region. The positive impacts of the tourism activities in Namche
resulted in entrepreneurship development among people, diversification in the income source,
and enhancement in the lie standard, infrastructure development and growth of the market.
The tourism activity in Namche has brought cultural frictions with the arrival of the new
guests. It has made to strong cultural adaptability and performances (Hubbard, Lageson, and
Bhattarai, 2017).
Identification and explanation of 2 key destination development issues currently taking
place at Namche Bazaar
The tourism assists in creating employment for the community by tourist activities like
guiding, trekking, touring, leisureliness, entertaining and more. Moreover, rural tourism help
in forming indirect and other non-form economic activities like local art, crafts, micro
business enterprises, food processing enterprises and others in the community. It has been
observed that tourism promotion and management is greatly influenced by the interests of the
limited section of the society in the concerned areas. The local contribution and involvement

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in the promotion of tourism activities are dominated by the local businessman. For the time
being, the prospects for the advancement and engagement are limited for rest section of the
community. The families with the low education level in Namche faces problem in surviving
in the tourism industry (Bhandari, 2019).
The pollution in the Everest is identified as another issue associated with tourism activities.
In the last forty years, 8 tons of garbage from in bottles to the oxygen tanks have been
dumped on the Mount Everest alone. Tourism is identified as one of the best activities with
the minimal damages on the environment but the supplementary services used like
transportation and exploitation of natural resources in the industry directly lead to
environmental pollution. Add on, tourism development should be conducted with the
advancement of tourism (Gössling, et al. 2016). The pollution is required to be actively
tracked.
One tourism issue for Namche Bazaar
Nepal faces issues in one of the tourism policy, Sustainable Mountain Tourism Development.
This policy is linked with meeting the requirements of the present tourists along with the host
community of the mountains. It safeguards and enhances the prospects for future generations.
This policy is having issues concerning to the mountaineering expeditions and trekking which
are required to be addressed (Hall and Page, 2016). The issues are identified to be royalty
fees, compound permit system, weak infrastructure, augmented pressure on popular
mountains, pollution, overcrowd, lack of updated equipment for mountaineering, over-
commercialization of the mountains, accidents, too much climb every season, inexperienced
climbers and more.
It is quite tough to get the authorised permission for mountaineering and completing other
formalities. There is needed to go to several offices and ministers in order to get permits. It
becomes quite annoying along with time-consuming. To get permits for the mountaineering,
there is just one office at Base camp. This way whole process becomes quite complex. Add
on, the expedition royalty fee in Nepal is too expensive. The operating costs required for
reaching peaks for expedition teams are quite high. It is because expedition teams have to
suffer the cost of liaison officer, the expedition costs are high. The mountaineering tours to
peaks more than 6500 m is restricted for the trekking purpose. It becomes must make
alterations in the current system of recruiting liaison officers. there is greatest number of high

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peaks in Nepal but the country is still unable to reap the benefits of appealing a great number
of mountaineers. The royalty fees for the mountaineering in Nepal are quite high as compared
to other nations (Tribe and Liburd, 2016). It creates problem in appealing to the tourists. The
major reason identified for less number of visitors is high royalty peaks. Nepal is required to
make required reforms in the royalty fee structure to appeal a topmost number of
mountaineers in Nepal (Batala, Regmi, Sharma and Ullah, 2019).
The weak infrastructure in the country has also has made mountaineering activities time-
consuming. The company has fewer transportation facilities to the Base camps of significant
Himalayan peaks. The transportation and concerned costs are quite expensive for transporting
the required goods to the base camp. Consequently, the operating costs become quite high.
Nepal is required to improve the transportation facilities to appeal mountaineers to the peaks.
There is urgent need to formulate a policy for the customs rates on the vehicles for the
tourism purpose (Suwal, 2019).
Conclusion
Namche has managed its antique culture, traditions and hospitality. Leading tourist
attractions of Namche are scored due to Himalayan peaks comprising Mt. Everest. The
tourism growth in Namche leads to enhancement of the tourism business in the local
economy. The attractiveness of the destination identified is cultural tours, trekking, Tibetan
artefacts mountaineering, meeting people and viewing mountains. The tourism activities have
led to an increase in socio-economic and cultural activities. The employment and income
level of the people residing in the same community has improved. Pollution and employment
have identified to be creating problem in destination development. The pollution put impact
in the form of transportation and exploitation of natural resources in the tourism industry. The
pollution is required to be controlled along with the tourism development with the
advancement of tourism.

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