Destination Stewardship Report – Vol. 5, No. 1 – June-August 2024
Popular hiking trails around the world are prone to developing knots of overtourism at access points. With their multi-decade experience in trekking tourism, it’s no surprise that the Nepalese have developed some innovative responses. Yvonne Montoya describes how one village takes tourism pressure off another.
Homestays can reduce trekking congestion, enrich villagers, and deepen tourist experiences
In central Nepal, the village of Tatopani, known for its natural therapeutic hot springs and amazing views of the Himalayas is located along the Annapurna Circuit, one of the most popular trekking routes in Nepal.
And so Totaponi suffers from overtourism.
The nearby village of Narchyang does not. Nestled in the foothills of the Annapurna mountains, Narchyang is a small subsistence farming community with a beautiful waterfall and rich history.
Nepal’s Community Homestay Network, based in Kathmandu, decided to help Narchyang create homestays, and so mitigate the overtourism problem while providing economic benefits to the local community. Now the Community Homestay Network is promoting Narchyang as an alternative trekking destination.
Aayusha Prasain, CEO of the Community Homestay Network, explained, “It really works on the issue of overtourism that we’re trying to mitigate through community tourism…. Only the well-marketed places get all the benefits, so we are trying to diversify the economic benefits and for that, we’ve been working very closely with the [Narchyang] community in terms of training and capacity building.”
The Community Homestay Network started in 2012 with one home in the village of Panauti. Today they have homestays in 36 communities throughout Nepal. The idea is to benefit both the traveler, who has a unique experience by staying with a local Nepali family and immersing themselves in a new culture and history, and the Nepali family, who gets an economic benefit from opening their home to visitors from around the world.
The Community Homestay Network uses an 80/20 business model with 80% of the money going directly to the host family and 20% being kept by the company for operational and marketing costs. They also encourage the homestays to use 20% of the money they earn to create a fund that can benefit the wider community.
To start out, at least five homestays in the community must be registered together. One of the benefits is they can use platforms like Booking.com to promote and market their homestays, and after they are legally registered, the homestays set up a committee with a chairperson, secretary, and treasurer. The Community Homestay Network also encourages the hosts to register in the local and provincial level government, so they can get access to training opportunities and peer-to-peer learning programs, which allow them to visit other established community homestays.
Sazza KC, Product Development Expert with the Community Homestay Network, said the first step in creating homestays in a community is to meet with the local people and see what programs and activities they can offer. “They provide different kinds of products to us and we let them know which product they can offer for the travelers. They give a timeline of how they can offer the product,” said KC.
The Community Homestay Network will then provide 6 days of training that includes hospitality, cleanliness, and hygiene. They also learn about gender equality and inclusion, basic English, waste management, and product development. Sustainability is also an important theme of the company, so participants are taught not to use single-use plastics. Instead of plastic water bottles they offer boiled or filtered water to their guests.
There are also child protection policies in place. Communities can’t employ children under 18 to provide any kind of hospitality or tourism services such as welcoming guests or cultural performances. The children cannot be alone with travelers and permission is needed to take photos of any child.
The Community Homestay Network also teaches the hosts about storytelling and how to communicate their stories about their culture and traditions. They give lessons on how to use social media, such as how to click on a photo from their cell phone and post it with hashtags.
For the Community Homestay Network’s part, they handle all the marketing and promotion of the Narchyang village homestays. Their target markets are Europe and North America. They created an initiative called ‘Community Connect’ to help promote community-based tourism in Nepal. This past May, they invited journalists, influencers, travel writers, and tour operators to come and experience a homestay for themselves. According to the company’s website, “These exposure trips showcase alternative destinations beyond mainstream tourism, alleviating overtourism pressures and offering enriching community-based experiences. Additionally, Community Connect culminates in an event that brings together exposure trip participants, local communities, and stakeholders to communicate the values of CBT and foster sustainable employment opportunities.”
Right now agriculture is still the main source of income for the Narchyang community, but according to Prasain, it’s declining, with many fields left fallow. “They are traditionally agriculture-based, but that’s on a subsistence level, not a commercial level.” She hopes tourism can become the number one way the community makes a living. “We are trying to promote it in such a way that maybe in 5 years tourism will be the major source of income and agriculture will go side by side with that,” said Prasain.
The Community Homestay Network is especially beneficial to the women in Nepal. Women run most of the homestays, and this has given them access to financial benefits and opportunities to help their families and their communities. Their kids can get a better education and they have more economic stability. The women also say they are becoming more self-sufficient and feel they now have a voice in their community.
With the boost in tourism has come an additional bonus. Young people who left to find opportunities in big cities are coming back, because they see the potential in tourism.
Narchyang hosted 200 travelers last year. Besides providing accommodations on the way to hiking the Annapurna Circuit Trail, villagers offer hands-on activities like helping work in the fields, cooking classes, short hiking trips, hot spring water sampling, and the chance to see wildlife like musk deer and snow leopards.
As for the future, the Community Homestay Network thinks their model can be replicated in other areas. Other countries have already contacted them to learn from their experience. Their short-term goal is to focus on promoting unique experiences for travelers in their 36 communities.
Prasain said these experiences help inspire travelers to stay longer and spend more money. She also doesn’t want homestays to be thought of only as low-cost accommodations that only benefit residents. “We have come to realize that people really love to do hands-on experiences,” she said. “It’s a learning opportunity for the travelers, so hands-on experiences around that area would help to increase the length of stay, increase the spending, and, we hope, turn all our community hosts into entrepreneurs.”
Yvonne Montoya, an independent filmmaker and writer, is the Community and Civil Society Topic Editor for the Destination Stewardship Center.