Q: What roles do you think international organizations and industry associations can play in promoting the integration of culture, sports and tourism, as well as regional tourism cooperation?
A: Association like IMTA, like NATA, I represent NATA from Nepal, like NTV can make people together. And they have one vision to make a sustainable and responsible tourism for the mountain people, for the mountain culture, to protect mountain culture, to the advocacy about the tourism and the difficulties in the mountain side, and to the efficacy of climate change. These are the major things the association can do.
It is a great pleasure to be here in Guizhou and Xingyi city. IMTA has a good management here for this conference. Last year, I also had participated this conference. And the second time, I'm really happy to be here. Association always has power to make people connect together. And it is always successful when people coming together and having connection between them. One thing is business to business connection. One thing is country to country connection. So this is a good idea, people coming together, having a discussion on some matters.
Q: Mountain tourism is getting increasingly popular among tourists. What impact will the continued development of mountain tourism have on the tourism economy?
A: Mountain tourism has a great impact in the overall tourism. So what happened is in Nepal, we have a length of the estate of the tourist is like thirteen fourteen days now. This is because of the mountain tourism, people have to walk for the hike 2 days for one destination and two destinations. They have to experience more to community. Because when people go to around the Himalayas region, the mountain region, the 2 days explain themselves. So the local people get benefited from that kind of trip. So that is a great asset for the mountain tourism.
Also mountain tourism has make the cultural protection in the mountain region, because people now are conscious regarding their culture. They have to protect their culture. They have to maintain the environment friendly impacts, especially in the regions. They have to make the trail very safely, and the concerns of the difficulties, concerns after the climate change.
So recently, we have faced one village that has been swept out by one of the flood, powered by the mountain region. That is new for us and we are so worried about that. So this is one thing, the government and the International Committee have to be careful about that because once there is no mountain, no snow in the mountains, the all ecosystem will be damaged. So we have to concern on these issues also.
And we have to do one thing: if there are too many people going to one mountain, we have to diversify, the traffic has to be managed to other mountain as well. Because one mountain is already saturated and other mountains also have people there, other people also will be benefited. So if there is a one particular mountain that has a huge traffic, we have to divert it to the other mountain as well.
Also mountain is like the mountain culture and please culture. They are pity innocent people, like they don't know the business, don't know the other things. They only know to expect tourist, they expect the people and they have to treat them like family member in the Himalayas. So when you walk around, you feel like home everywhere you go. Either you go to Nepal or India or China, whatever if there is a mountain people. I feel that I'm from the mountain country. I feel like when I went to Guizhou here last year, I visited some places here. I feel like the same feeling, what I feel in Nepal.
Q: With the international tourism market recovering rapidly and regional cooperation deepening, how to enrich the mountain tourism product supply to adapt to the market changes and meet the needs of tourists?
A: What happen is now people want to go to the nature based destination, like the Guizhou, like the kathmandu, like the Pokhara, and like the Annapurna region. There is less traffic and more nature based destination. That is a good example after this pandemic. Now, we are also recovering and the world is also recovering after 2019. We have to do one thing. If you have a good product, then we have to exchange to Nepal. Nepal has good stories of the mountain, because Nepal has an old history of the mountain tourism, the expedition we have, we have a number of mountains, we have 8,000 meters ever. The people I think the set pass, the trainer people is there, so we can exchange our training facilities. We can extend our idea on how to climb, how to do hiking, how to be responsible. We can share our ideas to the Guizhou province to the other countries
And also Guizhou has the technology now. You have innovation now. So we have to take this innovation and technology from your side. So both way we can have one greater thinking for the development of the mountain tourism. The mountain tourism leads to the healthy lifestyle as well. If the people work like for 5 days, 10 days. So definitely they have a good health system in their body. So there is no issue of any illness. One story I have is about one foreign guy who often go to Annapurna Base camp. After going back to California, he feels like he is reloaded and he has higher productivity than before. That is a good story we have. So we can exchange our ideas, develop people to people relationship and company to company relationship if there is any, then we can make the better mountain and better future of the mountain tourism.
Q: Have the international associations in both Nepal and Guizhou/China already achieved any kind of cooperation? Are there any plans in the future?
A: What happened is recently NATA, the association of tour and travelers in Nepal. It established in 1966 and is a very old association. We are planning to have one exchange between two countries because Nepal and China are celebrating 70 years in 2025 of the diplomatic relationship. So we are trying to have one joint climbing and hiking between the two countries. Also the embassy of China to Nepal and representing Nepal government have planned 2025 as a Visit Nepal year for the Chinese people. So many things are happening. Associations, we have a good lesson with IMTA like other association around the world, like PATA and IATA, we have good relationship with them. This is the cooperation between two countries’association. It's already there. We also want to strengthen our relationship in days to come.
Editor Ⅰ: Zhang Wenwen
Editor Ⅱ: Wu Dan
Editor Ⅲ: Liu Guosong
