Mr. Sarki Sherpa – General secretary

Introduction

Having worked in the trekking sector of Nepal for more than twenty years of my life has equipped me with a certain set of realizations that I would like to share here today. The first realization is regarding the true potential of Nepalese tourism. The truest extent of our natural beauty is seldom understood by the bureaucrats here in Kathmandu or by the people residing there who have already been habituated into their beauty since childhood. The true potential of tourism in Nepal still remains untapped and unknown to many. The second realization relates to the need of the trekking sector, which really needs highly-skilled guides to provide the best possible experience to the tourists. Such skill-development trainings, however, are either too costly, geographically inaccessible to many, and lag behind in incremental advanced level materials for those who require more than basic skills. The third realizations came four years ago when I started working more closely with other fellow guides regarding issues related to guides. I realized that there are many problems that we have to face being a guide in Nepal that seldom gets discussed in mainstream politics, seldom gets prioritized in meetings, and seldom gets solved. Not having proper skill-wise guide categorization, having no social security, and having few governmental support in institutionalization and validation of important training programs are just a few of the problems that hinder guides and the trekking sector of Nepal in overall.

Having had these realization, I could not just stay at my home and complain about how problematic the status quo is. I know it is my responsibility to act, and help others act for a positive cause. In this case, the cause is the improvement of the tourism sector of my country, and the means by which I intend to actualize that cause is TGAN. As the General Secretary, I am willing to do whatever is necessary for the improvement of our tourism sector, for making our voices matter, and for helping people realize the true beauty that Nepal is.