Home stay procedures at final stage

DINESH KARKI
KATHMANDU, Mar 9: Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) is at the final stage of implementing the procedures for home stay facility especially targeting the foreign visitors. NTB has been doing groundwork to implement the procedures for home stay to accommodate more visitors in tourist destinations in rural areas.

Once finalized, the procedure will legalize the accommodation of tourists in normal households that meet certain criteria set by them, Prachanda Man Shrestha, CEO of NTB, told myrepublica.com on Tuesday.
Nepal is observing the year 2011 as Nepal Tourism Year (NTY) with the objective of welcoming one million visitors - double the number of visitors that it is receiving at present.

As per the existing legal provisions, tourists can be accommodated only in establishments ranging from star hotels to lodges having at least four rooms. Besides these hotels and lodges, teahouses along trekking trails can also accommodate foreign visitors.

“The home stay procedures will facilitate the operation of establishments having facilities less than the lodges to accommodate foreign visitors,” Shrestha said.

Hotels and lodges equipped with modern amenities are concentrated only in Kathmandu Valley, Pokhara, Chitwan and some other major cities.

The NTY 2011 working committee has suggested adopting private public partnership approach for handling home stay facilities. “We are planning to mobilize local bodies like village development committees (VDCs) and district development committees (DDCs) and even co-operatives to manage lodges and home stay facilities,” Shrestha said.

He further added that NTB, with the active support of Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries, training institutes and even some tourism entrepreneurs, is planning to conduct orientation for local villagers in major tourist destinations in remote areas.

Existing infrastructure in the country is sufficient to accommodate one million tourists, according to officials of NTY National Committee. But infrastructure is not adequate in new and potential tourist areas.

According to Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN), there are a total of 226 hotels of different category across the country. HAN estimates the number of hotels not registered with it to be more than the number of its member hotels.


Published on 2010-03-09 21:53:00