“Tourism is ever changing but never ending business,” remarked Karna Shakya, leading tourism entrepreneur. “Therefore, if we want to sustain our tourism, it is mandatory to catch the global trend. Agrotourism is a contemporary concept. And if we don't understand this in time, it is probable that we miss a large chunk of our potential tourists.”

While elaborating the transient nature of tourism, he also added, “We cannot take tourism for granted. As tourism personnel, we should always thrive to be innovative. Otherwise, there are a lot of examples of the famous tourist destinations, which simply lost their charm over the creases of time.” 

Agrotourism is one of the concepts of tourism, which capitalizes on the rural culture as a tourist attraction. In many senses it is similar to ecotourism, though ecotourism emphasizes natural landscapes while agrotourism focuses more on cultural landscapes. In agrotourism, a native person or the resident of the area can offer tours to their agriculture farm and sheds to allow a person to view them growing, harvesting, and processing locally grown foods, which the tourists would not find in their own country. 

In other sense, agrotourism is also very helpful to sustainable development as it works as an alternative to harmful practices like slash and burn farming, destruction of rain forest, dynamite fishing, among others.

“Nepal is a very interesting tourist destination. However, people are valuing it at the cost of the environment and planet as a whole. While so much investment is put in building the luxury hotels, it seems a very little attention is paid towards preserving environment. The garbage in Mt Everest, for example, is a testimony to this,” comments Simone Faltermaier from Germany, who has been staying in Nepal for over a couple of months now.

One basic thing about tourism, as Shakya likes to put is, it is the business of dreams. And unless we succeed in fulfilling the dreams of the tourists, we cannot really flourish in business.

“Agrotourism has so much potential in Nepal that we can rely on it throughout the year,” enjoined Sharad Pradhan, the media consultant at Nepal Tourism Board (NTB).

Agreeing with Pradhan, Shakya added, “Generally, we consider monsoon to be off season. However, if we can really practice agrotourism, we can actually invite tourists to enjoy the plantation season. For example, we can promote the festivals like Asar 15. It not just helps visitors to enjoy the festival but also gives them an opportunity to get acquainted with agricultural areas, local products, traditional cuisines and the daily life of people as well as the environment and tradition.”

“Every year, a huge number of tourists visit Germany, just to enjoy the mud-bath. If we can make a good package and promote the plantation season, we can make a good profit,” he suggested.

If we can do so, it can also help us mobilize the productive, cultural and developmental forces of an area, contributing in this way to the sustainable environmental, economic and social development of the rural area.

We can also use tea gardens in Illam, forests in Eastern part, among others, as agrotourism destinations.