Pokhara luxury accommodation, Nepal

As one person said in the village “we are so proud of the organisation, it has made this village famous”. Perhaps some hyperbole but the lodge has developed pride in indigenous architecture in the community – all the artisans and labourers who built the lodge that was opened in 1998 by Sir Edmund Hillary were from the local community, and had active input into the design and construction.

A significant percentage of the staff are drawn from the local village, both male and female. With a transparent employment policy, socially responsible remuneration package and a strong community support partnership, we hope to have pioneered and piloted environmentally responsible and sustainable conservation tourism in the middle hills of Nepal. We are assisting a partnership between the government, community and our guests to develop the local secondary school and to upgrade its facilities to enable teaching up to School Leaving Certificate – this enables all the pupils, but particularly girls, to complete their education in their own village environment.

The development of an iconic tourism facility in a village that had not had access or interaction with tourism has provided employment opportunities, developed craftsman skills, training in and experience of other cultures and support for the community based and lead institutions that manage the natural environment.

Local guides provide the perfect bridging mechanism to enable our guests to interact with the local people and gain a unique insight into the lives of the majority of the Nepalese population – those living in the Mahabharat Lekh or ‘middle hills’ of the country. This cements the partnership between the lodge, the community and our guests that is sustained even after the guests return home with a wealth of mails, pictures and economic support for individuals and the community collectively.

Our local guides all participate in a range of data-collection / monitoring activities to research biodiversity levels, be it raptor (particularly vulture populations), waterfowl counts for Birdlife International, butterfly species counts to identify types and populations or meteorological data collection. All this is uploaded onto our website to be available to anyone who may find the data useful or interesting.

The lodge is also used as a role model for INGOs such as CIDA and WWF for the development of a socially responsible alternative for accommodation and service providers in rural communities. Familiarisation visits for officials from Cambodia and Tibet have been used to raise their awareness of responsible and sustainable tourism options that have been proved viable.

The lodge works in partnership with the International Trust for Nature Conservation (ITNC - a UK Registered Charity) to provide conservation advice and funding support for local environmental projects initiated by the community, Mother’s Groups, etc.

Staff have a range of funded training opportunities and these have included computer literacy, accounting and book keeping, bird identification, butterfly identification, Japanese and English language skills, and cookery.