Pilgrim Tourism in the Central Himalayas

Abstract

As a follow-up to the International Year of Ecotourism (IYE 2002) and the International Year of Mountains (IYM 2002), scholars and practitioners need to continue to address the challenges inherent in building pilgrim tourism on principles of sustainable tourism that reconcile cultural, developmental, conservational, and commercial interests. This article begins by reasoning that the increasing use of mechanical transport to pilgrim sites in the Central Himalayas erodes the cultural notions that have underpinned the Himalayan pilgrimage for centuries. Then, it seeks to demonstrate in two respects the relevance of insights into how sacred journeying interconnects persons, places, and time. The first insight concerns the travel patterns of and income potential from pleasure and pilgrim tourists in Nepal in the current situation of unstable national and international security. The second insight relates to local perceptions of sociocultural, economic, and environmental risks involved in the opening of cable car service to a famed pilgrimage site in Nepal. Finally, the article reasons that the cultural dimension must be included as a crosscutting concern in environmental, social, and economic impact assessments of transport projects to heritage sites. The study uses a combination of qualitative ethnographic methods, traffic and sociodemographic surveys, as well as official tourism statistics.

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