The roles of tourist guides and their training needs: A case study in Nepal : a thesis submitted to the Lincoln University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Parks and Recreation Management

Current growth of tourism into peripheral regions such as mountains and remote areas is occurring at the same time as tourists, predominantly from First World countries, are increasingly seeking qualitative components to their travel experience. Thus, adventure, along with ecological and cultural interpretation, and understanding are assuming greater significance in the tourist experience. Within the increasing literature on the sociocultural and environmental impacts of tourism, tourist guides are being suggested as a necessary requirement to manage tourist encounters and experiences, especially in Third World destinations. Nepal is one such destination that has experienced rapid and sustained growth in tourist arrivals, particularly in the past 25 years. Beside the Himalayas, cultural and biogeographical diversity have been the key 'products' of tourism in Nepal. However the generally Mountainous terrain and limited infrastructure ensures that many tourists contract trekking or touring guides. Field research involving host communities, tourists, guides and their managers was undertaken to examine and evaluate the various components of the guiding role, and to determine potential educational and training needs. The methods used were survey interviews, a postal survey of New Zealand travellers to Nepal, and informal interviews with local people and international visitors to Nepal. In this study, structured face-to-face interviews has been the most appropriate research technique despite being time consuming and costly. In spite of the recognition of the environmental and socio-cultural costs of tourism, further development of tourism is considered vital to Nepal's economic growth and as one solution to the numerous challenges facing the country. However, the majority of international visitors and locals, who are not directly involved in the tourist industry, believe tourism has room to grow but should not dominate as a strategy for development. Indeed, most participants in this research favour tourism policies that incorporate compulsory training for tourist guides, educating locals and visitors in environmental and socio-cultural sensitivities, and promote spending of tourist dollars at the local level in a way that helps to achieve wider environmental and social objectives. The need for trained tourist guides in the tourist industry is acknowledged by respondents to this research. Specific suggestions are made concerning the importance of culture and nature interpretation within Nepal, and for visitor safety. These suggestions however, are primarily targeted to meet the needs of tourists, rather than to safeguard the tourism products (host culture and environment). The majority of guides who have undertaken training report that their training programmes are insufficient and inadequate in terms of knowledge and skills. As a result, most of them are unable to perform some of the duties expected of guides such as nature and culture interpretation even though they were aware of these duties. Guiding related training programmes will therefore need to be updated to ensure production of skilled personnel for the tourist industry. The Department of Tourism and the Hotel Management Tourism Training Centre of Nepal were seen by most respondent groups as the appropriate organisations to accomplish these tasks