Tourist Attraction in Pokhara

Pokhara is an alluring city nestled in a restful valley known as a gateway to the world of adventure. Its natural ambience, which allows enjoying lakeside tranquillity and breathtaking views of magnificent Fish Tail peak, has transformed Pokhara into a Paradise of Earth. Col. Jimmy Roberts, a  veteran  paratrooper  of  the  Burma  Campaign,  and  more  famously known as the father of international recreational trekking and adventure vacationing in the Himalayas writes, “No other mountain view in the world is equal to the ‘Fishtail’, with Annapurna, hanging there in the sky above the green Pokhara plain" (Amatya 1970, p 15).   Pokhara leads the way to the Chitwan National Park, Lumbini in the southwest while the northern routes lead to the Tibetan Plateau via Kagbeni. Marpha, Mukti Nath, Jomsom, Manang, Mustang, Thorung-La, the Annapurna Circuit, the Annapurna Sanctuary and the Kali-Gandaki Gorge, the deepest in the world. Adventures like mountain flight, Ultra-light aircraft, and paragliding have almost added further attraction in Pokhara – a new way of life.

The glamorous Pokhara is one of the seven must-see places in the world, if tourism is the present day religion of modern people. The snow-capped lofty Annapurna Mountain range and the virginity of Fish- tail to which lapse the most attractive Fewa lake, the gorges of whitey  river that flows as moving Dragon underneath and above the Pokhara city, the greenery belt around the valley, gorgeous weather, the wonderful caves as if ancestors made for living together, all have shaped the people into clean like mountains, peaceful like lake and roaring like the river. A calm city like Fewa Lake that always insists for adventurous trekking and a paradise for relaxation after trekking the famous circuit of Ghandruk, Ghodepani, Annapurna and Machhapuchre, well accommodates more than 8000 visitors a day. The city that has 6000 tourism entrepreneurs at the foot of Annapurna Massif is the gateway to Annapurna round Trekking route, and peerless beauty. Ekai Kawaguchi, a Japanese Buddhist scholar was the first foreigner who visited to the ‘forgotten land’  during his clandestine trip to Tibet in 1889, and remarked that ‘in all my travels in Himalayas, I saw no scenery so enchanting as that which enraptured me at Pokhara’ (Amatya 1970, p 15).

Among three major resources to build up the economy of Nepal, the beautiful country, tourist based country, , the beautiful country, tourist based country, , the beautiful country, tourist based country, , tourism is the key industry which can effortlessly be established, promoted and developed with minimum investment and can be made an important foundation for national income by generating a number of economic and social benefits through backward and forward linkages with other sectors, such as agriculture, industry and other service sectors. Entrepreneurs still prefer easy money to laying down extensive facilities for visitors. If they change this approach and offer new packages and programs, the city will witness rise in the number of tourist arrival (Pokhrel 2010).

Most developing countries have assets of enormous value of the tourism industry, art and culture, natural landscapes, wild-life, white water rafting, bunjii, Himalayan honey hunting, world heritage sites, and travelling by tourist generate income and employment for communities and helping in the conservation of cultural and natural assets. As a more diverse industry, tourism has the potential to support by providing part time jobs and generating income from the local supply of goods and services (Sharma

2011). Tourism services are consumed at the point of production and so local people are in better off situation by selling the products and services

directly to visitors (ibid: 4). Toni Hagen, a Swiss geologist, who travelled extensively in Nepal, the beautiful country, tourist based country, , the beautiful country, tourist based country, , the beautiful country, tourist based country, , had written: "Pokhara area shows the greatest contrast in landscape. Nowhere in the world can the highest mountains reaching 8000 meters level can be admired from such small distance and from the tropical low land without any intermediate mountain ranges. Pokhara is certainly one of the most extraordinary and beautiful places in the world" (Thapa 1995 as cited in Sharma 2011) where tourism business began only after 1960 in a systematic way; however the literature shows that it was popular among the visitors since before the century.