The Namche Conference: May 24-26, 2003 People, Park, and Mountain Ecotourism Participants and Presentations: Dr. Krishna Prasad Poudel

Dr. Krishna Prasad Poudel Professor, Department of Geography Education, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal; email: kpoudel@healthnet.org.np Abstract Tourism Infrastructure Development in the Himalayas: A Quest for Sustainability One of the main goals to promote the tourist in the Himalayas needs the adequate development of the infrastructure required for the basic needs of the tourists visit. Construction of hotels and restaurants including minimum facilities are the most. Besides this, providing other basic requirements, such as electricity, communication, medicine, recreation and security are also equally important, and all these items directly associated with the tourism infrastructure of the area opened for the tourism. While developing these minimum infrastructure requirements by individuals or in corporate levels, the Himalayan heights often observed, reported and quoted in several academic, vernaculars and reporting that the major tourist sites, trekking roots and their peripheries are under the peril of environmental degradations. In this present paper, an in-depth study has been made in the Annapurna Base Camp Trekking Route from ‘Birethanti to Chhomrong’ about the impact of infrastructure development to its local environment. The study further analyze whether the infrastructure development able to sustain the resource management as well as its impact on long run-tourism development. The impacts of the infrastructure development have been traced both in physical landscape ecology as well as cultural landscape ecology. Full text of the paper will be followed the evidences of the field study done in winter 2000, and the analysis, suggestions for the better alternatives for sustainable development of the mountain tourism.

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