Ever since my first visit to Nepal in 1967, I have been both a participant and observer of the tourism industry here. I have spent 35 years creating over 400 guidebooks for Insight Guides on 125 countries, published in 10 languages with sales of 40 million copies.

The Insight Guide for Nepal was first published in 1984 in collaboration with a number of Kathmandu-based writers and friends. In the process of researching the book I walked and photographed the Kathmandu Valley and visited many trekking regions, one of the greatest privileges of my life.

Tourism is first and foremost a social endeavour with economic consequences, and should not be mistaken as an economic endeavour with social consequences. If we realise that the most essential aspect of tourism is the fulfillment of visitor expectations, it is not a complicated business to understand.

A happy visitor will bring two more visitors, potentially doubling visitor arrivals in the next season without a single dollar spent on promoting the country. A disappointed visitor will keep two visitors away. Nepal's unique scenic beauty and heritage can double visitor numbers, but how many do we disappoint with  visa officers who lack manners, touts at tourist 'attractions', or youth who now ask for 'one thousand rupees' on the trekking trails?

The real test of NTY 2011 is not whether one million tourists visit Nepal, but how many days they stay, how much they spend, and where the money goes. Austria, with a population of just 8.3 million, gets 50 million visitors per year and they stay an average of ten days. That is 500 million room nights a year at an average of 300 euros per day. The country earns 150 billion euros per year from tourism. How much does Nepal expect to earn from 1 million visitors – time to get out the calculators?

There is a need to integrate tourism with other sectors of the economy. It is absurd to have a Tourism Ministry. It should be a cross-cutting sector with focal points in each ministry. Is there a minister for the carpet industry? There isn't even a Ministry of Migrant Workers, although it is Nepal's biggest source of foreign income. If tourism is really important it should be factored into all aspects of the planning process, not treated separately.

The definition of tourism should be widened to include long-term foreign residents who want to live here and own hilltop properties: the 'Grey Dollar'. Nepal's tragic misunderstanding is that a 'tourist' is seen as a fruit tree to be harvested. Even worse is that it's not just the fruits that are harvested, but even the trees are being chopped down.

It is a wonderful irony that the most useless agricultural land is often the best tourism property: sandy and salty ocean beaches in Sri Lanka, or arid hilltops in the Himalaya. Tourism has the potential to inject income into the economy, raise awareness about environmental issues among local people and bring sustainable development.

A place to start may be to replace the word 'tourist' with 'guest' in English and Nepali and recall Nepal's traditional, spontaneous hospitality. That image needs to be rescued from the impression that a tourist is someone from whom we need to wring out every last dollar. We need to create and manage expectations, and we need to be aware that tourists who see ugliness as soon as they get off the plane are not likely to come back, or tell others to come.

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