Philanthropic Tourism and Nepal

Today’s world is broadly divided into two faiths: materialism and non-materialism. Materialism tells the mankind that happiness lies in accumulation of worldly tangible things and using them for life’s comfort. On the other hand, the non-materialism means finding happiness and bliss in intangibles like ‘feeling’, ‘knowing’ and ‘realizing’. It is more close to spiritualism.

After centuries of human kind’s experiment with materialistic approach, now gradually, the shift is towards the non-materialistic school, where they realize that pleasure and permanent bliss is triggered through emotions within. Philanthropic Travel means traveling with aim to help the community in the place visited. It is far more meaningful than the conventional tourism of staying in a hotel and a day of excursion. The very act of ‘giving’ generates a godly feeling, as a creator of somebody’s fate. The act is so pure and divine that it makes even the most sinful person feel as holy as a ‘sadhu’ who has not harmed anybody throughout his life. Such is the feeling of philanthropy that it helps relinquish loads of guilty and unpleasant feelings instantaneously as it is practiced.

Lord Buddha can be argued to be the first philanthropic traveler because he wandered from one place to another, delivering the lessons of non-violence and peace to the local dwellers. However, in modern times, philanthropic travel carries combination of both luxury of materialism and bliss of non-materialism. It is the ultimate luxury and a win-win-win formula on many, many levels. It creates a chain reaction of 'pay it forward' goodwill that unlocks powerful community development and gratitude. However, a word of caution is that in order to harvest the full benefit of philanthropy, both the traveler and the host community should strike a proper balance of give and take. The traveler should not create a Goliath image of him and dwarf the host community. If there is ego, there is no gain. The ideal philanthropist traveler is the one who enjoys innocence of his hosts living happily in hard circumstances, with his acts of delivery, leading to his own realization of satisfaction, and not necessarily the host’s. The stake holders of Philanthropic Travel consist mainly of tour operators, hotels, corporate, travel planners, NGOs, host communities and the travelers themselves. It has been sometimes promoted into a completely different kind of industry, and sometimes as value addition into conservative touring. Whatever way these two roads might lead, the volunteering spirit should not be bound to the choices of the middle men like tour operators who are focusing more towards education packages to students and teachers, providing medical and dental facilities, organizing eye-camps, clean water, training, helping build proper homes, microfinance and entrepreneurial skills to people of remote parts of developing countries.

The tourist should be able to serve in whatever area he has expertise in or whatever way he wishes to, but that does not happen, due to the lack of time and devotion in part of the tourist and his tour operator. But of course, something is really better than nothing. The industry seems to be guided by luxury tour operators who offer philanthropic-minded trips to places like developing countries in Africa, Kenya, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc. which incorporate visits to local schools, hospitals or wildlife centers. Nepal should be made a key destination in this industry at the infancy stage since it already has all that takes to be a philanthropic travel destincation. Nepal has just recovered from a decade long instability that has cost her very dearly economically. All the development activities have been virtually paralyzed. She needs a major thrust of economic push, to save itself from the vicious circle of poverty and under development. Here, tourism industry can be one among other few saviors. And if tourism is promoted with philanthropy, in a concept as described above, it will certainly have a competitive edge than its competitors and is bound to attract a volume of tourists whose accumulated economic value will help her heal the wounds in post conflict situation. She has been endowed with nature’s most beautiful sceneries, historical places, places with religious values, UNESCO’s world heritage regions, and most importantly, the most hospitable hosts. She is so rare and unique to have places as high as Mount Everest and as low as sea level flat Tarai lands, just within a span of hundred kilometers.

Every few kilometers give a complete different experience than the adjacent landscape. Now, when the country has been declared democratic republic, the new government should have tourism development in its priority. It should classify the places of tourists’ value, strengthen security situation including creation of ‘tourist police’ and guarantee safe passage to tourists to these places. Travel Philanthropy, at present, is the quickest means to lead Nepal to a truly independent and sovereign nation. Else, if the ongoing culture of grants and loans is going to persist, that will trap Nepal and its people into the vicious circle. Nepal cannot afford to miss to experience the thrust from this industry that will be similar to that by the electronic industry of Japan or the software industry of India.


The author is the research Associate at Centre for Economic and Technical Studies, Nepal Phone: +977- 9841528873, Email: balkrishnajha@gmail.com