Mountain Tourism

Each year, millions of tourists visit Himalayas. Sensitive to outside influences, the Himalayan environment of mountain areas has been abruptly exposed to it. Mountains are among the most popular destinations for tourism [1]; each year, millions of mountaineers (ie. hikers, trekkers, and climbers, Leisure tourists) visit high-mountain areas. Thus, mountains have become a mass tourist destination. Mountain tourism is widely acknowledged as a vehicle to stimulate the local and national economy in many developing countries. Tourist flows, particularly in mountain regions, have been steadily growing for many reasons: type of mountain activity (e.g., nature-based tourism or pilgrimage) and purpose of the activity (e.g., cultural reason), favourable currency conversion rates, easing of visa restrictions, low cost of logistics and food (e.g., depending upon the activity and services). These attractive features of mountains influence the tourist to travel to the mountainous areas of developing countries. Compounded by these reasons, the destination is another great attraction that motivates adventure and cultural enthusiasts to undertake mountain tourism of different types .

Although it was different in the past, today, all of the regions of the High Himalayas are well connected to the world. Intercontinental flights operate permanently to Delhi, Kolkata or Kathmandu In Nepal, Paro in Bhutan which are the major transport hubs for accessing the Himalayas. Journeys onward to the Himalayan foothills (e.g., to Dehradun) or even to the High Himalayas (e.g., Leh) are possible by air . However, as in many other mountain areas throughout the world, the bus remains the most common means of transport in the Himalayas. In recent years, the Himalayan Road network has become fairly dense and thus allows relatively easy access to many tourist regions. The quality of the roads is quite poor, especially in the upper reaches of the High Himalayas, where most roads are still gravel. In the second part of twentieth century, many destinations on both sides of the Himalayan arc were already connected by several transit roads, some of them even by the world’s highest vehicle-accessible passes . Once the last village accessible by road has been reached, onward travel is most often restricted to footpaths or trails (or by animal). While the number of trails, paths or climbing routes in the Himalayas is increasing steadily, there are still some empty, untouched spots today.

India is an excellent example of a Himalayan country with a unique richness of biodiversity due to diversity of physiography and climatic conditions. Overall, a significant proportion (about 72.3%) of the Himalayan Mountain system is located within India. It consists of three parts insulated from each other: west, central and eastern. Many of these reserves were subsequently declared as national parks or sanctuaries, mostly after Independence in 1947. Wildlife, together with forestry, has traditionally been managed under a single administrative organisation within the forest departments of each state or union territory, with the role of central government being mainly advisory. In 1970, the Indian Board for Wildlife drafted a national wildlife policy . Since the mid-twentieth century tourism has become the main element shaping and influencing the development of Himalayan regions like Kashmir Himalaya , Punjab Himalaya ,Kumaun Himalaya,  Sikkim Himalaya Darjeeling Himalaya , , Arunachal Himalaya, Nepal Himalaya, and  Bhutan Himalaya.

Nepal is a landlocked country with a total area of 141,181km2 where 83% of the land mass is covered with mountain landscapes including Himalayas [27]. Overall, a small proportion (about 20,7%) of the Himalayan Mountain system is located within Nepal. There are four ranges of mountains in Nepal covering Sivalik, Mahabharat, Mid Hill and High Himalayas. Nepal is broadly divided into two regions namely Mountain and Terai Arc landscape [18,27]. The regional range covers multidimensional attraction for tourism (e.g., trekking, hiking, expeditions) such as beautiful landscapes of great snow-capped Himalayan with steep land surface and fragile ecology, high climate with unlimited flora and fauna. In between these ranges are inhabited by a range of different communities’ mixture of various castes, ethnicity with rich culture and traditions who have been

sustaining the livelihood either from their traditional occupations (e.g., seasonal agriculture, animal husbandry) or from forest resources over centuries. Among the most popular Nepalese mountain tourism regions is around the eightthousanders Annapurna, Dhaulagiri and Manaslu, as well as Mount Everest, Lothse and Makalu. Located between the Dhaulagiri massif in the west and Manaslu in the east, the Annapurna massif is the most visited mountain area of Nepal. Taking into account all the attractions of this country, it ranks second – in terms of number of tourists – just behind the Chitwan National Park. The Annapurna Circuit itself is considered one of the most beautiful trekking routes in the world.

In comparison of India and Nepal, Bhutan is a small country located in the Eastern Himalayas. Overall, a very small proportion (about 7%) of the Himalayan Mountain system is located within Bhutan. Like Nepal, Bhutan is also a landlocked country bordered by the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north, and in the west by Indian states of Sikkim and Assam, West Bengal and in the east states of Arunachal Pradesh of India. More than 80% of Bhutan’s land area is naturally vegetated with almost 50% secured in a PA network . Constitutionally, 60% of the total land area should remain under vegetation/forest  and only 8% of the land is suitable and for agriculture, which makes most of the Bhutanese population highly dependent upon natural resources . The strong conservation practices, great geographical diversity combined with equally diverse climate conditions contribute to Bhutan’s outstanding range of biodiversity and ecosystems. Bhutan conservation management policy is backed by government regulations and policies which are the reason why the government has remained committed to the carbon-neutral country to date.