::: BEAUTY LIVE IN THE WORLD :::

The trend of rural Nepalis opening their doors to travellers passing by their villages has been inculcat ed in our traditions and customs since time immemorial.

However, providing bed and breakfast or home stay for monetary gains is a fairly new concept in the country.

Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) endeavours to make this hospitality trait an economically beneficial opportunity for Nepalis.

Home stay is a system where the local people accommodate tourists in their houses, with tourists paying for the services rendered. People living in any region, rural or urban, can offer home stay. Nonetheless, NTB has set certain criteria and standards to ensure quality for the guests. These include factors like a house should not have more than four rooms, with maximum two beds of standardised size of 6.5 feet x 3 feet in each room. A room should not accommodate more than two guests. The rooms should not be damp or have leaking roofs. The rooms should have cross ventilations, but should be far from cowsheds, especially in rural areas. The people offering home stay also need to have a first aid box handy.

Furthermore, one has to register their houses with the government authority and each community or district should have at least five houses registered to benefit from this programme. Those offering home stay should own the houses being offered for the service and one has to obtain a recommendation letter from the village development committee or the municipality to be eligible.

Keshab Man Amatya, president of Society of Consulting Architectural and Engineering Firms, Nepal opines, "Bathroom facilities are a sensitive issue. Foreigners are not familiar with Indian pans and will have difficulty using it. A commode is a fundamental necessity for them." Replacing an Indian pan with a com mode is fairly easy, as much renovation is not required. A basic white commode can be purchased for Rs 10,000 and can be replaced at minimum costs by plumbers.

Devendra Nath Gongal, architect and director of Multi Disciplinary Consultants also stresses on the requisite of high level of sanitation for people interested to offer home stay.

"We only have to maintain the standards on hygiene. Other changes are actually secondary and not really necessary, since home stays are cultural exchanges between the host and the guests," says Gongal.

In order to increase awareness about this campaign at rural areas, NTB has dispatched field experts, who not only orient locals about home stay possibilities but also provide technical courses and capacity building training to equip them to meet the basic standards required.

"The crash course lays emphasis on cleanliness and hygiene, as toilet system and facilities are the major problems in rural villages," explains Prachanda Man Shrestha, chief executive officer at NTB.

A NTB study conducted in 2010 revealed that there are 66,603 tourist beds available in 15 selected tourist sites in Nepal. Some major destinations incorporated in the study were Kathmandu, Pokhara, Chitwan and Lumbini. This study also illustrated that there were 236 units of home stay houses available in the selected tourist destinations. "With the initiation of new services, we hope to increase the number to 1000 units by the end of Nepal Tourism Year (NTY) 2011," says Shrestha. The aim of this campaign is to actively interlink local people with the tourism sector and provide a viable economic alternative for local people. It is an employment generator with the least investment of money and time. It has been promoted as one of the best means to experience the culture and customs of Nepal, which boasts of 103 ethnic compositions.

The prices for home stays are purely based on market forces -demand and supply. There is no intervention by other organisations. "Home stay is basically a relationship between hosts and guests," says Shrestha.

Sirubari, a Gurung village in Syangja district near Pokhara has adopted the home stay system. The village has now developed as a growing tourist destination, thereby increasing the living standards of the people and the village itself. "We are using Sirubari as an example and we hope to see similar progress in other villages as well," opines Shrestha.

NTB is marketing the concept in collaboration with the Tara Village Development Committee. Various promotional means like brochures, posters, media, travel agencies and websites have been utilised to promote the home stay campaign.