‘We are creating jobs and building tourist destinations at the same time’
In late 2020, when Nepal was reeling under the first wave of COVID and when the tourism industry was undergoing one of the worst times in its history, what mattered the most was jobs. Tourism was one of the hardest hit sectors. Thousands of tourism workers, such as porters, tourist guides, mountain guides and hotel workers lost jobs and there was no hope of immediate revival of the heyday of the tourism industry. Considering the need for livelihood recovery, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) jointly launched a new project “Sustainable Tourism for Livelihood Recovery” to support the recovery of Nepal’s tourism. The US$ 2 million project co-funded by NTB and UNDP started creating short-term jobs for the affected communities, particularly women and people from disadvantaged groups, whose livelihood was dependent on tourism. Initially the project aimed at creating around 1600 short-term jobs, which was soon expanded to cover a larger number of workers.
Dr. Dhananjay Regmi, CEO of the Nepal Tourism Board, has been one of the key persons behind the project. One year after the launch of the project, UNDP’s communications officer Kamal Raj Sigdel caught up with Dr. Regmi in Pokhara on World Tourism Day to take stock of the progress made so far under the NTB-UNDP-local government partnership and explore new possibilities ahead. Back then, he says, we had a very big challenge to keep thousands of professional tourism workers intact in the sector so that they don’t switch to other professions or leave the country for foreign employment. The immediate solution, he says, was to engage the ones who had lost jobs in repairing or constructing small-scale tourism infrastructures in the tourist hotspots so that we are creating emergency employment, and at the same time, preparing for re-opening our tourist destinations once COVID restrictions are lifted. Moving ahead, Dr. Regmi sees the prospects of engaging a large number of unemployed youth and surplus tourism workers in developing new tourist destinations across the country.
Excerpts from the interview:
As we mark World Tourism Day this year, what message would you like to give to the world, particularly to the prospective tourists?
On the occasion of World Tourism Day, which we are celebrating with the theme of “tourism for inclusive growth”, I would like to send out a message that Nepal is now open for tourists. The Government of Nepal has come up with a new protocol allowing people to enter Nepal without any hassles, as they can get a visa on arrival, which was discontinued since the pandemic. And at the same time, if you are vaccinated, you don’t have to stay in quarantine. They can get their PCR test done either at the airport or at the hotel and they can go anywhere they want. This is very good news that comes with World Tourism Day.
I would like to welcome everyone who are looking for destinations. Nepal is going to be the best destination after this pandemic. You can enjoy and trek inside the national parks. You can enjoy the wildlife. You can see the beautiful mountains and you can rejuvenate yourself. So, I am looking forward to welcoming you to Nepal.
Tourism industry is one of the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic. Thousands have lost their jobs in the industry. What efforts have been made to help the recovery of the industry and the livelihoods attached to it?
When the pandemic started, we never knew how long it was going to last. The waves started coming one after another. In the meantime, we got more serious about the skilled workforce in the interim, and we were concerned about what would happen if these skilled workers were diverted from their profession. We had a very big challenge, on the one hand, to keep them intact in the industry, and on the other, to provide them with some income opportunities so that they could sustain the pandemic. At that time, we came up with an idea. Why shouldn’t we try to create some short-term jobs by engaging them in rebuilding tourism infrastructure. And that is what we tried to communicate and build partnerships with a number of NGOs, INGOs and UN agencies in Nepal. UNDP took great interest in the idea, and we signed an agreement between NTB and UNDP where we focused on two things: retention of the jobs in the tourism industry and construction of small tourism infrastructures.
Consequently, we launched a pilot project, “Sustainable Tourism for Livelihood Recovery Project” (STLRP), which proved to be a huge success. Under this project, we are creating short-term jobs equivalent to more than 100,000 workdays. Some are working for 10 days, some for 20–30 days. Altogether within Nepal, we are creating short-term jobs for more than 20,000 people. It became possible not only with the collaboration between UNDP and NTB, but also through the partnership with local governments, which have also played an equally important role. Local governments joined forces following a participatory approach and also injected some funds. We requested the participating local governments to purchase tools and materials required for cash-for-work activities using their own resources while the project provided wages directly to the workforce engaged.
Now that Nepal is officially open, I believe tourists will start traveling to this country, and those who have been unemployed for a long time, whom we have assisted through our small projects, will have better work prospects.
As the tourism industry slowly revives and the workers get back to their original profession, what new possibilities do you see going forward?
What I realized is that we need to come up with backup plans and this type of projects all the time, and not just during the crisis. We can immediately reach out to the people when needed. Sometimes, while working on a project, things progress so slowly that by the time we start implementing it, the problems are already solved, and you don’t need the money for the project. So, through this project, we learned that we could do a pilot project and when it is successful, we can implement the project in full scale.
Our major focus in this project was to provide employment to the jobless people and in the future, maybe we can look at tourism growth from a tourism development perspective. Whenever we need this type of project, we can jointly work together and help develop new destinations, and also mobilize skilled workforce to get better results.
We also learned that we could use the tourism workforce during the offseason for the development of new tourism products. We are also thinking about doing additional collaboration with donor agencies, development partners on developing new tourism products in Nepal.
