Adventure Tourism in Pokhara

A Policy Paper
Pokhora – the red spotted one
 Policy on: Adventure tourism

 Focus area: Pokhara

 Focus aspect of tourism development: advertising/ marketing/publicity

 Period of policy implementation : two-year plan

  Objective: to promote local entrepreneurship through the development of adventure

tourism with special focus on publicity

 Slogan: “Wonder, explore and discover the Pokhara”

 Assuming a position of: Mayor

Background

Pokhara is one of the main tourist attractions of Nepal. Its natural beauty, socio-cultural

diversity, and suitable geographical location have fascinated people from all over the world.

Pokhara, a metropolitan city in central Nepal, is cosmically blessed and naturally gifted (Upreti

and et al., 2013). Because of its unique mountain ranges, magnificent lakes, spectacular

landscapes with multi-ethnic composition, Pokhara is famous for different kinds of tourism such
as pleasure tourism, adventure tourism, echo tourism, ethnical tourism, community based

village tourism and MICE tourism. However, adventure tourism has been very popular and the

centre of attraction for many tourists these days. Tourists mainly enjoy sight -seeing,

mountaineering, trekking, hiking, paragliding, rafting, cycling, fishing and so on.

Despite a huge potential of adventure and other forms of tourism, Pokhara is

underperforming its potential because of poor infrastructure, human resource constraints, poor

investment environment, weak government leadership and lack of advertising and marketing

(IFC Report, 2016).

Rational

Under this section, I am going to clarify the significance of the focus on adventure

tourism and advertisement as an appropriate way for its growth and development. To put in

other way, I am going to answer why I stick on adventure tourism and its publicity aspect as a

policy option. Indeed, there are a couple of reasons for the policy emphasis on adventure

tourism. First, growing popularity of adventure tourism in recent years have signified that

adventure tourism has become an important part of economic development in the countries

like Nepal. Without proper policy and planning, its potential can be rightly recognized and

realized. Second, of all kinds of tourism, Pokhara is naturally suitable for adventure tourism

because of its unique rivers, falls, caves, lakes and mountains and has high potential of growth,

and as a result it is getting popular. Third, if we focus on the development of adventure tourism,

other forms of tourism which are closely associated with it will also be enhanced. Therefore, I

have planned to focus on adventure tourism.

 Because of the globalization and information technology, the world is unprecedentedly

connected and integrated. It has been a small global village. In this context, for tourism

promotion advertising and marketing has been both increasingly essential and easier than ever

before. We cannot imagine the progress and development of tourism, especially adventure

tourism without an effective publicity; systematic and well- planned marketing strategies play a

crucial role in tourism industry, like in other industries.

Undoubtedly, Pokhara is a one of the world’s attractive tourist destinations for

adventure tourism. However, it is seen that because of lack of proper policy, plans and

strategies in tourism publicity, Pokhara has failed to embrace as many tourists as it is expected.

In fact, there are very serious and genuine problems related to publicity, information

dissemination and communication. As mentioned above there are other challenges as well that

are posing hindrances in tourism development. But I think publicity is the most important issue

today as everything is significantly influenced by advertising, marketing and media and so does

the tourism industry. As a result, I decided to form a policy for the promotion of adventure

tourism.

Strategies

The major focus of this policy is on the use of Information Communication Technology

(ICT) with maximum activation and involvement of youth in adventure tourism marketing. With

the maximum use of ICT and youth, I have planned to promote both adventure tourism and

youth entrepreneurship.
 Aiery and others argue that public policy making is a social process that involves

communication between many people in a variety of different organizations (Aiery and et al,

2008). Doweling on the grounded theory (Aiery and et al, 2008) of policy making, the strategies

of this policy implementation stresses mainly on the collaboration approach for the effective

promotion of adventure tourism in Pokhara. Despite different stakeholders and concerned

people’s involvement and effort in isolation from both private and public sectors in

advertisement, the outcome is not satisfactory. Realizing this fact, collaboration model is

planned to be adopted. This collaboration model includes collective effort of four different

sectors. They are: public sector, private sector, tourism related organizations/ NGOs and INGOs,

and community involvement. All these four sectors are expected to work emphasizing on four

major aspects of adventure tourism promotion. They will collaborate in production of

advertising materials, manpower development, organization of events and campaign, and run

and operate the information centers. As our major focus of this policy is to increase the use the

Information Communication Technology (ICT), these areas are focused ensuring the maximum

use of ICT.

The metropolitan city will coordinate with tourism related business, media houses, local

community, NGOs and other organizations to make the marketing more purposeful and

effective. The metropolitan city, for example, can work to ensure a coverage of adventure

tourism content in media- be it electronic or print and encourage and inspire business

corporations and individuals to contribute in this campaign of adventure tourism promotion. In

addition, the other aspect of this policy is to maintain good governance. Having understood the

fact that policies are often failed to yield a good result because of poor management, special
attention is paid on activation, monitoring and regulation of each and every aspect associated

to this policy to ensure its effectiveness.

The collaboration model is shown in the figure below.

Marketing Methods

Given the fact of increasing connectivity at this time of digital globalization, the special

emphasis of this promotion policy is on the effective use of ICT. Other mediums, however, are

also used such as print and electronic media, brochures and posters. The marketing activities

are discussed in points below.

1. Through electronic, print and online media

2. Internet and website

3. Social media
 4. Brochure, posters, handbook, videos and audio information

5. Tourist Information centers

6. Campaigns, festivals, and special events

7. Advertising materials in different major languages

Promotional Activities

Using the above mentioned mediums, the adventures activities that can be done in Pokhara

and around the area will be highlighted to attract the tourists from home and abroad. Realizing

the fact that we live in a marketing and media-driven world, particularly the following activities

have been planned to carry out to make the promotion effective.

1. Promotion of adventure tourism through the maximum use of ICT, internet and website

(detailed, well managed and updated information of different adventure activities-from

ticket booking to cancelation)

2. Focus on collaboration with private sectors, tourism related organizations, NGOs/INGOs,

media houses and academic institutions

3. Encourage Involvement of youths (special loan for youths and unemployed graduates to

encourage them to work in tourism promotion campaign like trekking agency,

information centers, travel tours etc.)

4. Local –international connection and promotion through immigrants, students and

Nepali embassies in foreign countries

5. Encourage community and personal level contribution-for example, use of social media

and other forms of media

 6. Trainings, workshops, seminars and discussions in different forums on its promotion

Implementation

The proposed policy will be implemented in three different phases. The first phase is

pre-implementation phase. In this phase, we discuss with all the related stakeholders about the

possible marketing strategies and try to involve them in promotional activities. We make all the

preparation in this phase. Second phase is the stage of actual implementation of the policy.

After completing all the preparation in the first phase, we run the project smoothly

collaborating with all the sectors. The third stage is the phase of implementation with

continuous improvement. In other words, it is the phase of evaluation. After every six months,

we systematically evaluate our performances and outcome. On the basis of evaluation, we try

to improve and correct the weakness and strengthen the performances. This reflection will help

improve our strategies and as a result there will be a positive influence in expected result. Also,

this will allow the system of punishment and reward considering the objective evaluation.

Expected outcome

As mentioned in objective, we focus on some aspects of adventure tourism promotion.

After this policy execution, especially we have expected 3E: economic development,

entrepreneurial enhancement, and environmental protection. It is obvious that tourist arrival

directly contribute in income generation and employment. There will be a tremendous

influence in economic development by creating investing options and opportunities. In

addition, as we encourage youths to start their enterprise that is related to tourism promotion

by providing loan without interest, unemployed youths will be motivated to different

entrepreneurial activities which ultimately help in their personal prosperity and at same time

contribute in tourism promotion. When people experience the direct and indirect benefit of

rapid tourism development, they get inspired to make a necessary contribution. For example,

we make people aware of making environment clean through our special campaigns and

events. If that campaigns help in bringing more tourists, people will be benefited in different

ways and as a result they become more committed to protect the environment. This policy,

therefore, ultimately supports in environmental protection of Pokhara and neighboring area.

Conclusion

Notwithstanding its natural beauty, flora and fauna, socio-cultural abundance and

especially potential of adventures activities from paragliding to horse riding and honey hunting,

Pokhara deliberately fails to develop adventure tourism because of the lack of proper planning

and its effective execution. To be more specific, we could not foster adventure tourism as we

failed to sell/ advertise/publicize our strengths and beauties or make it known to all. As a

Mayor, the head of this policy formation and implementation, I strongly believe that there will

be a significant change and development in adventure tourism of Pokhara after two years. At

the same time, realizing the fact that previous plan and policies did not yield a good result or

were unsuccessful because of poor governance and weak leadership, I am seriously committed

to effective monitoring, regulation, evaluation and correction seeking the consensus of all the

stakeholders. Since the essence of this policy is collaboration, the stress will be on the bottom-

up approach of policy implementation rather than top-down approach. However, I am highly

aware of maintaining discipline while embracing the democratic practices. Therefore, I have
planned to implement the reward and punishment system to enhance and strengthen the

performance of the bureaucracy.

References

Airey, D. and et al. (2008). Tourism policy making: The policy makers’ perspectives. Annals of
Tourism Research, 35. pp 732-750.

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Bauer, A. ( ) Marketing adventure tourism-what works and what doesn’t. Germany: Munish
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Report (2016) Integrated Tourism Destination Development Plan for Pokhara and Surrounding
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http://www.tourism.gov.np/downloadfile/Pokhara_integratedtourism_1494310261.pdf

Iamsoo, M.S and et al. (2013) The role of marketing in tourism industry. Internal Research
Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences. Vol-4 (73-80).
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Upreti, B.R and et al. (2013) Tourism in Pokhara: Issues, trends and future perspectives for
peace and prosperity. Pokhara: Pokhara Tourism Council.

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