The Himalaya has taken to tourism in a big way. International visitors are swelling the high valleys from Chitral in Pakistan, eastward through Manali, Thak Khola, Khumbu, Sandakpu to Wangdiphodrang in Bhutan. They are all out to "do" Kashmir, Bhutan, Nepal or Tibet. For the foreigner, the South Asian rimland continues to attract visitors from the farthest reaches of the globe.
The Himalaya has taken to tourism in a big way. International visitors are swelling the high valleys from Chitral in Pakistan, eastward through Manali, Thak Khola, Khumbu, Sandakpu to Wangdiphodrang in Bhutan. They are all out to "do" Kashmir, Bhutan, Nepal or Tibet. For the foreigner, the South Asian rimland continues to attract visitors from the farthest reaches of the globe.
Newfound income is making its way into mountain households used to centuries of subsistence living. The economies of the region are being turned on their heads. Most would acknowledge tourism's benefits — foreign exchange, employment, to name two –but the industry has always been regarded with a certain amount of discomfort, as if there were some guilt attached to it. One simplistic explanation would be that tourism brings too much too soon to too few. Tourism is categorised as an industry, but it produces no wares. In the Himalaya., tourism is the tantalising lifting of a veil — and collecting "tax" from all those who get lured by the charm. Just as the charm is lost when a veil is lifted too often, mass tourism dilutes a society's identity.
Since tourism in the Himalaya cannot be wished away even by those who regard it with distaste, the key is to learn to manage it as a long-term resource. It is a complex game to play and the industry is nothing if not vulnerable -to war, scarcity, internal strife and even, as in Nepal's ongoing case, trade disputes with neighbours. Vacationers run shy at the first whiff of instability, sending the arrival charts dipping like an aircraft that has lost power.