– Dr. BP Badal

Young entrepreneur of 36 years old, from Ilam Suryoday, Prem Prasad Acharya, attempted to burn to kill himself in front of legislative federal parliament of Nepal, because of the unbearable corruption, embezzlement, graft and immorality in every section of Nepalese society in his suicide note.

Tourism minister of Nepal, Sudan Kiranti, warned the staff of Nepal Airlines to initiate online ticketing within a month or if not resign from the post. There are always two sides to an event, positive and negative.  The perception of people here in Nepal is found are based on political ideology neither positive nor negative. It means that people do not have their own independent ideology on any issue. What the leaders of the concerned political party say is the ideology of most of the people. People are not free to express their views because of the fear of exclusion from parties. It means that people who support Maoist and Kiranti are for and others are against the move. Prem Prasad Acharya is a representative of victim of corruption.

It is unfortunate that people do not represent the truth. Authors, intellectuals, journalists, teachers, lecturers, and even professors are the political cadres so they cannot speak the truth. They must follow the guidelines of their party leaders otherwise they will not get opportunities on promotion.

To get opportunities in the profession also dignitaries have to be a slave like of political leaders. They have to write what their leaders say as a layman. A senior bureaucrat of Nepal government has shared such a bitter experience.  However, the rise of Harka Sampang, Balen Sah, and Ravi Lamichhane of Nepal independent party, has given some hope of truth and freedom.

Again the same old political leaders are urging and even ordering to the intellectuals to go against these independent notions. It is necessary to break the syndicate for the free flow of freedom of ideology in society to crack the corruption otherwise other many has to commit suicide.

From an independent perspective, tourism is the most sensitive and vulnerable business.  A single negative move can affect entire industry seriously. Most of the tourism entrepreneurs claim that Nepal is not being able to fly in Europe and we are not being able to Brand Nepalese Tourism. In such a situation Nepal is not even being able to fly Nepal flagged aircrafts even in all internal airports. What is going on ?

It needs drastic alteration. Nepal Airlines was established in 1958 and is 65 years old.  its aircraft are grounded; wide-body aircrafts are in serious problem. To date, it does not have online ticketing system and still moving at a very lazy pace. It has 1,400 staff and facing political problems due to the overstaffing.   A similar airline, Thai Airways, was established in 1960 and is 63 years old now. It is one of the most advanced and smart airways in the world. It has 14,400 staff 10 times more than Nepal Airlines. Why is it so? The reason is political corruption of different Kandas (Dhamija Kanda, Chej Air Kanda, wide-body Kanda and many more). In these 65 years, 67 aircrafts are crashed in the sky of Nepal. It is not a technical issue but it is completely a serious case of corruption.  Nepal as a nation (117/180), is 65% corrupt. Nepal is seriously ill due to the massive corruption in every section. Thus it is the most important move of the tourism minister against the corrupts. It will be a milestone to save the life of like such young enthusiastic entrepreneurs.

Similarly, Nepalese political leaders and bureaucrats are really ignorant of the issues of the importance of tourism. If they could have basic information about tourism the country will have already changed into a developed country. The biggest problem of political leaders is that they know all – but knows nothing- the foolish tenets of the world. People dislike them but there in not any alternative. However, the young generation has significant representation in the parliament and governments at local, provincial, and federal levels this year. Thus the young political forces must learn what is tourism and how it works with nominal financial resources. Simply it needs tourism management literacy that is free from corruption. He was pitiably suffered in tourism business as well. Tourism industry has to take it seriously.

What is tourism?

Tourism is the production of intangible products. The prices of intangible products cannot be comparable with a tangible product. What is the price of the goodwill of Mt. Everest or Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha? The commodification of intangible products is the collection, analysis, packaging, and distribution of natural and cultural values of a specified destination is tourism.  Most of the students of Economics and management know that “Asset is equal to Liability”. Liability is capital means capital is the asset. It means the economization of assets is the transformation of assets into capital. The transformation of these natural and cultural assets into sustainable capital is tourism. Showing old age historical cultural as well as natural monuments, to the tourist, can earn substantive income. We do not need to open a factory to produce a product to supply and sell, we have thousands of mountains, rivers, forests, cities, historical monuments, and settlements as our tourism product. We don’t need to invest to start factories. We have to start selling. Nepal is a factory its nature and culture are the product. But we need a moral support to young business persons like Prem. Minister Kiranti knows well.

The Tourism Product

The tourism product is the presentation of nature and culture with a psychological attribute of hospitality. It is the pure devotion to nature and the culture of human ownership. Presenting the river as the river Ganga, Presenting the mountain as mountain Kailas is tourism. Presenting a community as a rainbow community, and presenting agriculture as agro-tourism is tourism commodification. As we know, if we add love and devotion to food, it becomes Prasad, to water it becomes Jal, and to stone it becomes God. Similarly adding the values of love, respect, and devotion what we do is a tourism product. Thus tourism development does not need extra investment. It is simply the addition of a culture of love, peace, and hospitality in our working life. Our regular jobs could turn into tourism jobs if we add love and hospitality. Simply we need the art of selling with moral hospitality.

The corruption is killing the hens giving golden eggs. The corruption is killing hundreds of like Prems of Nepal. In tourism, flying low-standard aircraft in the Nepalese sky due to corruption is killing the tourism by direct suicide kicks. Aviation industry itself a responsible and accountable tourism industry of Nepal must be able to demonstrate a clean and transparent aviation industry of the world. With the cessation of using political cadres as a sycophant in unlawful activities to bureaucracy by aviation investors, 90 % of corruption will be controlled. By a dignified stand of aviation industry against corruption, the sky of the Nepalese aviation industry will be clean and clear for all over the world. Minister Kiranti will be a successful young leader to clean the dirt of the tourism industry. Otherwise aviation investors have to face the situation and like of Prem because of the return of the paid bribe. The suicide note is a thesis of Nepalese rampant corruption. It’s enough, let’s stop it.

(Dr. Badal is a practicing scholar of rural tourism  development and planning)