Tourism in the new Millennium

-By A Staff Reporter

Nepal’s own Bollywood megastar, Manisha Koirala, found herself in the company of another Bollywood starlet, foreign visitors, seasoned diplomats, government officials and senior military officers when she attended the Himalennium on Ice celebrations at Nepal’s only 5-Star Deluxe Resort Hotel - The Fulbari Resort - in Pokhara.

Manisha Koirala at Fulbari Resort, Pokhara .

Over 100 high-profile guests dined, danced and enjoyed French Champagne under a towering ice sculpture of the Fishtail Mountain in the Resort’s ballroom. They were joined by guests from the Resort’s other restaurants to witness the lighting of 108 flying paper lanterns especially imported from Thailand. A spectacular 15-minute fireworks display began on the dot at the stroke of midnight.

Another prominent guest at the exclusive “Himalennium on Ice” dinner included the famed Indian ‘Alternative Cinema” actress Deepti Naval. Other VIP guests included HE Precha Pitisant, the Royal Thai Ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal, the Chairman of Nepal Bank, Lok Bhakta Rana, and Brigadier General Biplav Gurung, among others.

In addition to the local dignitaries, there were other visitors from as far afield as Washington D.C., Jakarta, Indonesia, and Vietnam, according to Bruce Moore, the Resort’s General Manager.

“The guest list was as impressive as the event itself,” said Moore, and added: “Our aim was to create something unforgettable. The passing of this Millennium will be an indelible memory for all our guests.”

As a memento of this exclusive Millennium festivity, the Resort presented each guest with a personally engraved Shaligram fossilized stone - itself a high Himalayan Nepalese memento of millenniums past, according to the Himalennium event news released by The Fulbari Resort.

Manisha’ millennium message

Manisha’s message to all the Nepalese and others which she gave at The Fulbari Resort - Pokhara - Nepal at the dawn of the new millennium says, “My wish is for this new era to herald an age of tolerance and understanding!”

Manisha Koirala, Bollywood’s Nepalese blockbuster icon, was a Himalennium guest at The Fulbari Resort from where she announced her Millennium Message on Saturday January 1, 2000 in the following worlds:

In my own country, Nepal, this is the year 2057 Bikram Sambat. For the Newars of Nepal, it is 1021 Nepal Sambat. For the Tibetans, it is 2127. And for the Muslims, it is 1378.

Then why is it that we are celebrating this year 2000?

For me, it is an opportunity for the people all over the world, of different faiths, different races and different cultures, to celebrate together the passing of an age, and with it the beginning of a new era.

We all carry with us dreams, hopes and wishes for the new Millennium.

My wish for this new era is to herald an age of tolerance and understanding. Tolerance and understanding for each other - person to person, neibhbourhood to neighbourhood, culture to culture, and country to country, and for the planet which we call home.

Last night, here at The Fulbari Resort, we floated 84 paper lanterns up to the sky. Tradition tells us that these lanterns take with them our fears, disappointments and frustrations of this Millennium and leave us fresh - free to look to the future with optimism and confidence. My hope is that we all can use this opportunity to do just that.

I wish you all a very happy New Year 2000. May all that you wish for yourself, your family and your friends come true.

Manisha Koirala
The Fulbari  Resort - Pokhara - Nepal
January 1, 2000

UK assistance for tiger monitoring in Nepal

The British Government has given a grant of over US$36,000 to WWF Nepal for a tiger-monitoring project in Chitwan, Bardia and Shuklaphanta tiger conservation units.

According to a press release of the British Embassy here in Kathmandu, WWF Nepal will use the funds to work with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation and The King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation to monitor tigers in the wild. The technology of camera trapping has been applied in the Royal Bardia National Park since 1997 and was extended to Shuklaphanta in 1998. The field teams have been able to use the pictures to gather information about 28 tigers (24 in Bardia and 4 in Shuklaphanta). This data has been compiled and analysed to develop a comprehensive and unique record of a species threatened with extinction.

This project is part of an on-going programme of conservation activities funded by the British Government which includes a study of Nepal’s compliance with its CITES obligations which was published in May 1999.

Women brave it out in Nepalese tourism

-By Neville Shortt

It is to everyone’s advantage that visitors to Nepal get what they want.   However, the current tourism climate inside Nepal means that they get it at whatever price they want, too.  Supply now outstrips demand to such an extent that the principle, sometimes the only, arbiter of choice is price.

Cut-throat competition ensures that prices are as low as possible, and the negligible profits leave little margin for quality or training.  Whether it’s Tiger Balm or a tiger-watching, the next person will offer it for less.

One route out of such a vicious circle is through innovation, but the imagination and courage that requires seems to be in short supply.  What  exists in its place is a series of identical companies selling virtually the same products, and the sheer effort required to make a sale shows in the desperation of the sellers.

So, to find a successful Nepalese company with an innovative product is to find the exception that proves the rule.  There are not many, but one is even more exceptional in that it is managed by the three Nepali sisters who established it five years ago.

Dicky, Nicky and Lucky Chhetri are from eastern Nepal but were brought up in Darjeeling in India.  That their upbringing was unusual is highlighted in the fact that they received a third level education in a country where the literacy rate for women is about 15-20%.

Even so, the traditional route would have been for the sisters to marry  shortly after their education finished.  Instead, they decided to become  independent.  They first thought of setting up their own school. Lucky, the eldest sister, had already worked in rural family planning projects, so she understood the practical importance of education.

The three consulted a tourist guidebook (who doesn’t?) and decided that the site should be Pokhara; Nepal’s second city.

Having gotten there, they found that Pohkara already had too many schools  and they were advised to set up a restaurant in the town instead.  Ever  flexible, they did so, although they admit they had no idea how to run such a concern.

They hired a chef, only to discover that he would ask them how to prepare  the orders that came in!  Another chef was hired, but it proved too late.   The restaurant’s reputation had already turned sour, and running a  woman-managed business in Pokhara was not proving easy.

After four months of failure, they were considering packing up and going  home.  After all, isn’t that where women were supposed to be?

Fortunately, the new chef knew more than how to cook.  He brought the sisters to Lakeside; the tourist area adjacent to Pokhara.  He reasoned that a progressive idea like a company run by women would have more success if it was catering for Westerners.  It was exactly the kind of advice that the Chhetris needed.

They took out a lease on a Lakeside guesthouse in 1994, learning as they  went along.  It proved much easier than the restaurant in Pokhara.

Pokhara is the main staging post between Katmandu and Nepal’s most popular trekking area; the Annapurnas.

Some of the returning trekkers were not completely satisfied with their trekking service, and asked the sisters why they did not operate such a service themselves.  So many lone western women wanted to go trekking without any risk of being walked off of their feet, or even of sexual harassment.  Nepal remains an exceptionally safe country for tourists and trekkers, but there was a clear market for female guides for female trekkers.

The sisters were initially dubious.  After all, they were only just getting comfortable with the guesthouse trade.  But there were enough comments in a similar vein to prove the demand. Lucky, who had already some mountaineering experience, became probably Nepal’s first female trekking guide.  It was not a move for the timid or the faint-hearted.  A female guide cannot share any of the accommodation, or much of the camaraderie, of her male counterparts.

That was quite an accomplishment in itself; to complete the course as a lone Nepali woman with over a hundred men at the HMTTC(Hotel Management and Tourism Training Centre).

Dicky and Nicky followed in her footsteps, including guide training at the Pokhara Tourism Training Centre.  The sisters requested a woman-only guide training course, to be told that the minimum number would be ten.  To find ten such mould-breakers was beyond their powers, but they recruited seven and made up the numbers themselves(from the PTTC).

Their trekking business prospered alongside their guesthouse.  In order to supply guides on demand through the high season, they now have fourteen, mostly female, guides on their books.  Some of the guides would be disadvantaged by Nepal’s social strictures and would otherwise have little future.

In order to facilitate training, the sisters initiated their own development Non-Government Organization (NGO), called “Empowering the Women of Nepal”. 

Five percent of the trekking income goes to the NGO.

They do not advertise, but are mentioned in the Lonely Planet.  They make good use of the internet for communication, but they do not have their own website.

They are completing a new, and very tasteful, guesthouse in Lakeside.  After that; no more broken leases!  Its construction is being overseen by one of the Chettri brothers.

Meanwhile, Ashok Chhetri supervises the restaurant.  And the chef can cook -I can vouch for that!

It has not been smooth.  They have had to change premises four times in five years and have been the objects of ridicule and abuse and despite their innovation they are ‘conveniently neglected’ by their own industry.  Nepali business is dominated by the ‘old boy’s network’, and there are few favours made for anyone outside the club - let alone for a woman.

But if one thing demonstrated the difficulty of what they have undertaken, it is this; in spite of five years of success in the face of such cut-throat competition, the 3 Sisters remains the only trekking company in Nepal in which women offer women guides to women trekkers.

And the pleasantly surprising thing is that they still care about trekkers, about tourism and about women’s role in Nepal.  They care enough to show that Nepali sisters can do it for themselves.