Community Based Tourism (CBT) in Nepal is considered one of the important industries
for sustainable development and empowerment. The government is apprehensive
on promoting this industry with higher priority. With a view, it being an employmentoriented
industry there is a notion that it could solve the socio-economic discrepancies, if
expanded to many areas of the country. Taking these facts into consideration, it has been
initiated to develop community-based tourism with wider objectives. It is also argued
that the impacts on livelihoods and not just income need to be assessed along with the
variety of positive and negative effects. There is a strong belief that CBT capacitates and
empowers local people as actors in tourism planning, development and management.
There is a perception among the local stakeholders that CBT helps them understand how
tourism could contribute to their well-being and take active roles to minimize the negative
impacts of tourism. It is intended that the management, development and ownership
of local tourism resources and products should be carried out by the local communities
themselves to ensure maximum tourism benefits to the local stakeholders, making them
more responsible. Despite the fact that there are numerous training courses being run
particularly focused on the tourism development in Nepal, there is still a deficiency of more
CBT related training manuals. Effective teaching and learning process, sharing knowledge
and experiences amongst the trainers, participants as well as other stakeholders are still
in high demand. Furthermore, proper monitoring and follow-up practices of executed
training events are preferred to be ensured.