Nepal makes hiring local guide a must for tourist trekking in Himalayas

Friday, March 10, 2023

Nepal has made it essential for all tourists who hike in the country’s Himalayan region to employ local support, officials said. The law, which goes into effect on April 1, is intended to improve travel safety while also creating more employment, according to the dpa news agency.

Tourists were formerly permitted to walk alone, without local aid, or with unregistered guides or acquaintances.

On Tuesday, Mani Raj Lamichhane, a spokesperson for the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), the organisation responsible for the decision, stated that every visitor will be required to hire a guide or porter through a recognised trekking business.

The move is intended to enhance local tourism significantly and give employment prospects for hundreds of guides and porters whose livelihoods have been impacted by the tourism slowdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The new regulation will apply to established trekking routes covered by the Trekkers’ Information Management System, where each trekker, even free independent trekkers, will be required to seek authorization from the NTB.

The new rule, however, will not affect the climbing which has its own set of regulations.

“It will help ensure a safe trekking experience while allowing us to keep track of trekkers and provide timely rescue services in case of any emergency situations,” Lamichhane said. She further stated that the decision was taken in consultation with the country’s Trekking Agencies’ Association and Joint Tourism Trade Unions Forum.

According to Lamichhane, the NTB gets between 40 to 50 cases of missing hikers along the path each year, and officials frequently have difficulty finding and retrieving them.

Nilhari Bastola, the president of the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal, said that the new regulation would benefit both trekkers and the tourism industry.

“The majority of individuals who perish or disappear while trekking are those who go alone without a guide or an understanding of the terrain. These tragedies could have been avoided if they had a local guide,” he said.

Some hiking routes in Nepal are remote, lacking roads and communication infrastructure, and are located far from human towns. Because of the difficult terrain and lack of infrastructure, it might take from hours to days to rescue hikers in these places in an emergency.

While most Nepalese stakeholders have lauded the decision as a win-win situation for tourists and high-altitude labour, there are fears that the new regulation may dissuade tourists from visiting Nepal and harm the industry’s recovery from the coronavirus outbreak.

According to the NTB, Nepal attracted 73,255 tourists by air travel in February, roughly four times the number of tourists who visited during the same month the previous year.

Nepal is home to some of the world’s most popular trekking tracks, including the Annapurna Circuit under Mount Annapurna and the Everest Base Camp climb in Mount Everest’s foothills.

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