The following questions were sent to Tejanath on 10/26/08 requesting clarification about the information presented above:

1. What is the concrete problem the community wants to address?

Our community would like to address the following twin problems:

The tourism busines in Sankhuwasabha has been facing many porblems because of lack of lack of well-facilitated hotels. Lack of information about the beautiful places, the place of historical importance, curo goods, bio diversity etc.

*****What type of tourists visit the district? What do you mean by well-facilitated hotels? Can you explain more about "the beautiful places?" Provide examples if you can. What places of historical importance are located within the district? "Curio goods"-I'm not familiar with this term-can you please explain? Bio-diversity in reference to what in particular?

The farmers who have been producing and collecting different herbs have been deprived of getting reasonabe price for their herbs because they are ignorant aboot the market of their products. They have lack of knowledge about the harvesting, storage of their products and collection.

*****What are the primary herbs that are produced? What are the primary herbs that are collected-are these naturally growing in Nepal or planted? Do farmers sell their herbs in Khandbari Bazaar? How do they know they are not getting a reasonable price for their herbs? Do they know why they are not being paid competitive prices? Is it a quality issue? Is this impacted by improper or ineffecient harvesting methods? How are herbs stored presently? Is there a demand for the herbs, if so by who? What other items and crafts are produced in the local area?

2. Has the community taken any steps towards the solution?

In the past during the period of the conflict AVCC committee tried its best to avoid the disturbanc of tourists. Because of lack of knokledge AVCC could not do anything for the benefit of the farmers.

*****I am not sure I understand the relationship between the tourists and the farmers? How is one related to the other? Why would this be of interest/importance to outside tourists and draw them to the district?

Tejanath has been working on his response to these questions and they will be posted here as soon as I receive them from him.

Regards-

Jennifer

Tejanath sent me the following document to answer the questions that I posed. He provides a lot of useful information on the local situation.

Sankhuwasabha Answers to Questions Posed.doc

Tej/jen - please note that whilst the website is good and will be effective - knowing the nature of the trekking industry there is still alot of marketing work to be done - whic is probably the most demanding but crucial part - i.e. real business

Dear Andrew and Jenny
Thanks for your posting and good suggestions.

look forward to hearing more from you.

Tejahath

Tej/jen - build the strategy about some of my suggestions previously - start off with identifying groups of trekking clubs overseas. This can be done with the internet.

Do you agree?

I posted both as you suggested a few days ago. You'll see in step 2 there are 3 tasks noted-all the ones you mentioned to me in your email. They probably could be combined into one. Whatever works!

Jennifer

I think I missed it - sorry!

I thought this link might be useful just simply for information's sake as a reference.

http://www.tourism.gov.np/

It contains a lot of statistics about tourism in Nepal-including who is visiting, where they are from, etc.

I was reading through the answers, and the one about the hotel caught my eye

> Well facilitated hotels means services and the facilities like bed and breakfast, lunch , dinner and
> supper and facilities like communication, monetary exchange in the hotels the tourists would like to
> have while staying there.

In addition to being a hard problem to solve (good hotels don't just spring up out of nowhere) I don't think this is a very important issue. When I'm travelling (especially on a hiking trip) I'm basically just after a warm dry place to sleep and filling food - it's a nice bonus if it tastes good. Anything beyond that is a bonus. A well maintained campsite with a few amenities (showers, a hammock with a view, stuff like that) is actually much more fun to stay in than a nice hotel.

Thanks for the insight Richard. I really appreciate all the experience you and the rest of the experienced campers, trekkers and travelers have brought to this project so far. It is so helpful and really invaluable information-especially to someone like me who has no experience in this sector whatsoever! :)

I can probably help by trying to link users of herbs (aryurvedic medicine, companies, resorts, pharma companies etc.) with producers/growers from your area. For this, I need to know what kind of herbs are produced/found in your area. Also, a list of recommeded selling-price, if any, would also be useful. I can then try to identify prospective buyers here in South India, and link them up with sellers from Sankhuwasabha, thereby eliminating middle-men, commission etc. There is a profusion of ayurvedic-linked establishments here in Kerala, and I'm sure there will be some positive development.

Also, a friend of mine is an agricultural scientist and is currently involved in a number of rural projects assisted by international aid. I'll try to rope him in to help.

Let me know asap. & Good Luck.

Looking forward to help.

Hi Paapaan-

I am very certain that Tejanath would be interested in this. Things with the project have been at a bit of a standstill as we wait on the tourism committee to be reformed. This has been impacted by the political instability in Nepal. I am sure as soon as Tejanath sees your message he will respond to this though.

Thank you for your kind offer to help.

Kindest regards-

Jennifer

Dear Paapaan

I have been very much interested about your message. I will write to you in detail in me next posting

Please wait till then
Best regards

Tejanath

Khandbari
Sankhuwasabha

Dear Paapaan
Thanks for your interest about the herbs in Sankhuwasabha. After studying in the market now I am going to mention the list of the price in the following blogsite.
www.sumantraders.blogspot.com

Please visit our site. Please contact me for more in formation to my following e-mal address.

email: sesf2345@ntc.net.np

Tejanath Pokharel

Khandbari

www.sankhuwasabha.com

Dear Tejenath,

Namaste.

I worked on a similarish project in Gorkha in 2000. Although a larger community, it faced similar problems as it is not strictly a main tourist location (which is incredible as it is the old capital)!

One solution and the one I worked with was by setting up a charity with the community leaders whereby people more from Western countries were encouraged to stay and help out, teaching in the local schools, medical students in the hospital and medical outposts, social workers in women's refuges etc. This benefited Gorkha in 4 ways:-
1) It got word around what an interesting place it was to stay and thereby increased word of mouth tourism.
2) The people who came to work for the charities stayed at local hotels and with families and spent money in the community.
3) Ideas wre created on how microsmic communities could earn more money eg women's refuge selling crafts.
4) The charity workers provided a useful service which was mutually beneficial. For example, the medical students learnt a great deal from their time there and also passed on information from their studies to the regions doctors.

The main problem that you have concerning normally tourism is marketing and being listed at tourism companies in Thamel or other parts of Khatmandu would be ideal. If you had a guide who could take people on treks etc this would be very advantageous - the principle problem with this is that trekkers are now spoilt in Nepal with some very, very good guides who have amongst other things excellent English and sometimes other language skills and are used to dealing with Westerners for many years...they may expect similar quality.
Having read your other posts, a web site incorporating eco sustainability, is a great idea, but again it needs marketing - possibly by contacting the heritage commission in Khatmandu. Things will obviously be slow to begin with and will require persistance. Curio goods and herbs are a more complex problem I don't have the knowledge for this but suggest the products to be as unique as possible to differ from what can be bought all over Nepal. If the farmers are growing Cardammon can they grow a special variety?
Although at this point you have very few tourists, this is ironically your strength, as travellers search more and more for places that are off the normal route and beaten path, you need to market this on traveller's web forums like the Thorn Tree, there are hundreds..I am unsure as to whether you can provide unsolicited marketing on the site I mentioned but there are plenty of other sites. Hvaing promotional literature in hotels and hostels in Khatmandu would be a major way of attracting people and would be reasonably cheap.
This brings me to my last point, one of the most important things that needs addressing when creating a website, brochures on scenic spots and treks, even hotel menus is correct English wording and grammar. I remember from my stays at places as popular as Pokhara that the standard of English in the tourism literature was muddled and incoherent to a level that become, no offense intended to the locals- as it was miles better than my Hindi, quite funny. This, if avoided and done properly with a translator will put you way ahead of the competition.

Please conatct me if you require further information, one of the things I did in Gorkha was to create new tourist pamphlets highlighting the history and local scenic spots, so I could help you with this. Please also see http://visitgorkha.com/

Kind regards,

Richard