Tourism entrepreneurs' expectation from the provincial government in touristic city – Pokhara, Nepal

Abstract

PurposeThis paper explores entrepreneurs' expectation from the new provincial government to protect sociocultural values for promoting touristic city – Pokhara, Nepal.Design/methodology/approachThe purposive sampling technique was applied to source the information from the respondents resided at Pokhara. Structured questionnaire techniques and cross-sectional descriptive method were used to collect data from 393 tourism entrepreneurs to explore their understanding and existing situations.FindingsAbout 85.5% of the respondents argue that the new government system has affected their business and 58.27% feel procedural complexities due to new political administrative system. Natural beauty, growing pollution, unmanaged urbanizations, good flow of the tourists and sustainability of the touristic city resulted as main aspects of Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats. The entrepreneurs expect that newly formed provincial government should provide business security, formulate appropriate tax policy and provision for business insurance scheme for smooth operation, growth and sustainability of their tourism entrepreneurship.Research limitationsThe research was taken in Pokhara, only the entrepreneurs mostly resided at Lakeside were taken and wider research across the whole city would give a more balanced perspective.Practical implicationRecommendations are made with the aim of uplifting entrepreneurship milieu in the touristic city Pokhara in order to promote tourism business of Pokhara.Social implicationThis research can help local authority to take local residents' and entrepreneurs' experience into consideration for creating better plan and policies for the well-being of Pokhara.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to provide data from the perspective of entrepreneurs' expectation from newly formed Gandaki provincial government in Pokhara, Nepal.

Does westernization influence the business culture of a touristic city?

“…This research tries to explore the influence of westernization in the business culture of Pokhara. As Pokhara remains the major touristic destination, tourism related entrepreneurship has been substantially increased in the last few decades (Devkota et al, 2020). But, along with the growth of the tourist and tourism entrepreneurship, the business culture of Pokhara has been affected largely with westernization.…”

“…Pokhara, a famous tourist destination in Nepal, lies as an important old trading route between China and India. Pokhara, being a part of the Kaski Kingdom established in the form of Chaubisi Rajya (24 Kingdoms of Nepal) in the 17 th century and ruled by a section of the Shah Dynasty, was annexed by late King Prithvi Narayan Shah into his kingdom in 1786 AD (Devkota et al, 2020). Since then it has remained an important trading place on the routes from Kathmandu to Jumla and from India to Tibet.…”

“…The pre-requisite to select the pool of potential places within the metropolitan city were that they were heavily equipped with entrepreneur activities. All entrepreneurs of the selected metropolitan city were directly or indirectly serving tourists as tourism has remained the major source of their business (Devkota et al, 2020). Hence, the total population of this study is based on the entrepreneurs of Pokhara.…”

“…Preservation of local culture can sustain the uniqueness of Pokhara to offer to the tourists. It can increase the inflow of tourist perpetually in Pokhara (Devkota et al, 2020). Rodi and Kauda (traditional local folk dance) have been almost displaced by westerm 'Rap'.…”

“…In the context of Nepal -Pokhara, Lukla, Lumbini etc. are some of the destinations where a number of tourists have been increasing substantially (Devkota et al, 2020). The reasons behind such rapid growth in the numbers of international tourists at the Devkota, N., Paudel, U. R., & Bhandari, U.…”