Socio-cultural impact of tourism in Pokhara, Nepal

Socio-cultural impact of Tourism in Pokhara

Nature and life puzzled many philosophers for thousands of years and that they ultimately realized that human life must have emanated from the supernatural power. When a mid-nineteenth century naturalist , Darwin , propounded his theory of evolution in his famous work The Origin of Species (in 1859), the paradigm of considered the origin of species shifted faraway from conventional notion to evolutionary theory. He expounded the idea that neither the intelligent nor the strongest, but only the fittest can survive. He claimed that transformation was essential for the continuity of life. He established transformation as a pervasive force for both living and non-living phenomena.

 

Later on, Spencer , a social Darwinist (Dickens 2000), linked it with society and politics with the assumptions that conflict between groups in society results in social progress as superior groups outwit inferior ones. This notion advocates that the strongest or fittest should survive, but weak and unfit ultimately move faraway from the circle of life. 

Eventually, Social Darwinists began to say that the rich and powerful cultures have right to survive. within the same context of argument, Rao (2002) writes that each society and culture, regardless of how traditional and conservative, is consistently undergoing change and ultimately society changes in ceaseless flux. For Rao, society can't be a static hypothesis. Similarly, Hunt and Colander (2012) advocate that cultural diffusion and assimilation are major attributes of recent society and thus a serious portion of any contemporary culture today has been derived from other cultures.

In social transformation process, ascribed status are going to be altered by achieving status (Foladare 1969). it's a shift in collective consciousness of a society - local, state, national or global, in order that reality is refined by through external stimulus. Tourism has been analyzed during this paper as a strong external agent as advocated by Social Darwinists.

The objective of this study is to explore, differentiate, analyze and synthesize the impacts and implications of tourism development over the socio-cultural domains of host communities with special regard to Fewa Lake catchments (east & north-east) of Pokhara, Nepal, the gorgeous country, tourist based country, , the gorgeous country, tourist based country, , the gorgeous country, tourist based country, . The triangulation method (Smith 1995) of exploratory qual-quan approach is chosen for this work. Pre-tested questionnaires are wont to collect the first information. there's a big role of private observation also as individual conversation with local stakeholders like the police and non-entrepreneurs.

The work is essentially supported the detailed research conducted in 2005 (verification survey in 2012 for this article) by using proportionate sampling with 58 informants from six homogeneous strata - restaurateurs, hoteliers, tours operators, trekking agents, curios/souvenir shops and non- entrepreneur households. the connection of the chosen variables with the expansion and development of tourism were hypothesized and tested by using students’ T-test at 5 percent level of confidence. 

Values obtained by variance (σ) and coefficient of correlation (r) were also considered significantly. The obtained value of t-test (to) for all variables exceeded the table value (tv) and thus the null hypotheses of getting no relation of those variables with tourism development had reached to the acceptance level. Manual processing and analysis was also wiped out addition to SPSS results to interpret and decode the qualitative attributes of the knowledge .

The context

Tourism acts as an agent (Madleod 2009) to induce socio-cultural values and norms of a society into dynamism, which begets ranges of change and modification in society and culture. Tourism, a smoke-less industry, is a global social event which is essentially taste-driven (Page et al. 2001). Fridgen (1996, p 77) writes that tourism may be a group endeavor during which social and cross-cultural contacts, encounters and interactions are inherent aspects; and cross-cultural exchange (Foladare 1969; Britton 1982; Cohen 1984; Nash 1995; Hofstede 2001) is strictly what makes tourism existing. Nash further narrates that travel experiences often are among the foremost outstanding memories within the traveler’s life (Goeldner and Ritchi 2006). citizenry are innately curious and also concerning the planet during which we live and therefore the curiosity made people visit explore their surroundings, discover the unknown and seek new experiences (McKercher 1998). Gautam Buddha’s travel for the search of data could be a relevant instance though his attainment are some things sort of a quest instead of mere journey.

Society may be a web of social relationships (Rao 2002). Culture may be a complex set of learned beliefs, customs, skills, habits, traditions and knowledge shared by members of the society (Greenwood 1982; Landis 1986; Allan

1992; Nash 1995) that hold them together during a community. For Page et al. (2001), this set may be a ‘cultural baggage’ (p. 277). However, Neo-Marxists are rather skeptical in tourism perhaps thanks to its imperialistic demeanor of unequal exchange with host communities as losers (Smith 1980; Greenwood 2004; Sharma 2007; UNEP 2012). Putting views within the same line, Wearing et al. (2010) writes that the bulk of tourists are from the western industrialized nations and these tourists consume the people, places, cultures and resources of the visited place (p. 53). For MacCannell (1992) it's a cultural cannibalism. except for Allan (1992), this phenomenon is cultural conflation. Similarly, Roday et al. (2011) assume that cultural shock and cultural arrogance are often the explanations for causing conflict between the tourists and therefore the host.

Some impacts of tourism over the host society appear relatively quickly while others tend to manifest slowly and gradually (Greenwood 1982; Dann 1996; Fridgen 1996; Wang 2000; Archer and Cooper 2001; Page, Brunt, Busby and Connell 2001; Gmelch 2004; Sharpley 2010) and over time, those implications transform (Macleod 2010) into socio-cultural changes with enduring solid foundation. But it's also a incontrovertible fact that every society feels the necessity for a few degree of stability (Gmelch 2004). If change occurs very rapidly, it's going to create new problems with periodic chaos and crises that give people a way of uncertainty and insecurity that people are unprepared. This could be the case of host-guest conflict (Mercer 2001; Swinglehurst 2001; Wearing, Stevenson and Young 2010; Hashimoto 2010). Whatsoever, for Wearing et al. (2010) these impacts are always seen as objective and measurable – and hence potentially controllable.

UNEP (2012) describes that tourism’s implications are ambiguous and perceptive (Reisinger and Turner 2004); an equivalent objectively described impacts are seen as beneficial by some and are perceived as negative by other stakeholders. The socio-cultural impacts of tourism are numerous and varied (Cohen 1984). Fisher (2004) also observed a perceptible influence of westernization on Sherpas in Khumbu region of Nepal, the gorgeous country, tourist based country, , the gorgeous country, tourist based country, , the gorgeous country, tourist based country, in clothing styles like the utilization of down jackets and climbing boots, recognition and use of foreign languages, replacement of Tibetan ‘salt- butter-tea’ by ‘sugar-tea’ and admiration of western ways of life. Thus, tourism is under the microscope (Goeldner and Ritchie 2006, p 465) to check its behavior. thanks to this reason, sustainability has become a buzzword in tourism academia now. the most remit of sustainable tourism is to strike a balance between the host, the guest and therefore the environment

The 8 best things to do in Pokhara

1. MOUNTAIN GEAR. Pokhara is a great bazaar for mountaineering. ...
2. WALK AROUND THE LAKE. Take a day to just walk around the lake, relax and see how local women wash their clothes on the shore. ...
3. WORLD PEACE PAGODA. ...
4. ADVENTURE ACTIVITIES. ...
5. SARANGKOT VIEWPOINT. ...
6. TREKKING THE HIMALAYAS. ...
7. RELAX, GET A MASSAGE OR GO OUT. ...
8. TRY LOCAL FOOD.

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