If we have long been thinking that rural Nepal or the countryside has been becoming a place for living, not for making a living, then we must now change that idea.
However, rather unfortunately, the gradual decline in agriculture is bringing about fundamental structural changes in Nepal’s rural areas and economy. It not only creates economic problems but also undermines rural identity, which used to be closely bound to agriculture. There is now a search for new functions within the rural space, which has enabled compensation for the loss in agriculture. In this respect, the development of tourism is a popular strategy. Tourism is “the fastest growing industry worldwide,” and many rural areas have the potential to attract tourists. Apart from such economic opportunities, tourism also tends to be regarded as a means to conserve rural identity because identity “sells.” Yes, identity is now what Nepal shall sell.
The shift in balance has an unsettling effect on the stereotyped temporal-spatial image of rural Nepal. It is now changing from a place of production to a place of consumption, thanks to ballooning remittances. This has allowed new functions and new players to enter Nepal’s rural tourism sphere. If we aim at developing tourism beyond just an opportunity for rural development, Nepal may well redesign a multifaceted destination transformation of its rural space into places for living, retiring, and spending leisure time. This can be a forthcoming shift in the demographic balance of power, counter-positioning culturally rich rural Nepal in “New Age Nepal.” Rural Nepal, aka the countryside, has metamorphosed both drastically and dramatically in a decade in search of renewed vigor and vibrancy, but without much loss of identity as a tourism destination per se. Periodic political economies have delved into deliberations from agricultural policy to rural policy holistically.
Agriculture still accounts for approximately more than 60% of land use in Nepal. Given the labor force migration trend, this percentage is likely to decrease significantly in the coming decades. The World Bank, in its recent country report, has presented a starkly low performance of the agriculture sector, where the overall economic growth was stuck at 3.4 percent in the first half of FY 25/26. Even the third-quarter report of the monetary policy echoes similar readings. The weaker agricultural performance is attributed to low rainfall during plantation and excessive rainfall during October 2025, leading to loss of harvest. It is compounded by non-climatic factors, as structural constraints such as low productivity and labor shortages continue to dampen productivity amid rising rural-to-urban migration.
The question arises here: the increasing price-market gap and the absence of the influence of the farm lobby in the political circuit have aggravated the situation and are paving the way for non-agricultural priority investment. It is one of the pull factors fueling the increase in non-agricultural jobs in rural areas. Even peripheral areas became more popular as locations for different types of industries, and by the end of 2020, rural areas had shown better figures in terms of manufacturing employment growth. This growth is largely owed to the relocation of branches of large national corporations. It was also contributed to by small-scale, locally based industries. It became clear that peripheral rural areas possess qualities of their own that can serve as a base for economic development. This is especially noticeable with respect to the increasing importance of tourism as a rural employer.
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The pressure is unevenly distributed among different rural areas. There is a growing disparity even within the rural space across the country. A growing difference between attraction-rich, amenity-rich regions and marginalized, remote rural areas is emerging. Rural areas that showed the highest growth in pro-tourism investment and employment opportunities during 2010–2020 were those characterized by an attractive natural environment, proximity to mountains, conservation areas, and national parks. Rural regions adjacent to metropolitan areas also did well in transforming into satellite destinations. There must be policy goals for rural areas.
The tandem of changes in rural areas and ideas on rural development is simultaneous and complementary. Rural areas no longer define themselves as peripheral. The remarkable changes in infrastructure, accessibility, and communication technology have reimagined the concept of rural Nepal. Development is no longer an imposed idea; rather, it is based on the regions’ own strengths. Rural development is now becoming increasingly region-specific rather than generic. It must now be rural policy rather than just agricultural policy. This is crucial. We must enable ingenuity to create opportunities for the development of a highly diversified economy—agriculture, crafts, industrial SMEs, leisure, and tourism.
Tourism development is a popular strategy for rural areas. Tourism seems to have great potential to combine economic development and the conservation of rural qualities. Evidence shows, however, that in many cases tourism does not live up to these expectations. It is, therefore, relevant to search for ways in which tourism can improve its position in this respect. With all its plans for tourism, the government is foraging into the “rediscovery” of Nepal’s rural areas, and this seems extremely timely at a moment when rural life is being redefined and tourism may well arrive just in the nick of time to save the identity of rural space or the countryside from being finally abandoned by its ever-migrating populace.
The government, in the coming fiscal years, plans to rebrand the country’s most iconic image as a spiritual destination and has also tabled another ambitious plan of branding thousands of homestay units under a single umbrella of national branding. The plan is both ambitious and comprehensive. It may seem overriding, but all units of the federal government—federal and subnational—may align at the right trajectory since tourism development is the most overarching policy framework at all levels. If we do so, Nepal will hold a special place in South Asia as the most superlative rural tourism destination.
Rural tourism, being based on multiple factors, helps offset the problems of disadvantaged regions and correct distortions and inequalities. To this end, a proper “re-balancing” policy could be followed by revitalizing areas that have suffered at least partial economic decline owing to policy failures. This integrated action can serve as a cornerstone for local recovery, not merely by establishing a new economy based on services—both public and private—but also by reusing the particularly large stock of traditional buildings that reflect the history of the cultures that have shaped our rural space. The dynamics move inter alia along the urban-rural continuum, manufacturing cultural shifts and a postmodern transition.
Any single tourist is the prototype of a postmodern human. Instead of being a mere “residue” of working time, leisure time increasingly occupies a central position both in individual lives and in society at large. As identity increasingly becomes leisure-related rather than work-related, tourism is interesting not only from the point of view of tourism itself but also for the trends and changes it evokes in society as a whole.
Now it is a fact that tourism has long been the forte of the countryside, and that it is now intensively commodified, promoted, symbolically consumed, and integrated. This is to be expected in the context of today’s global capitalism, the expansion of information and communication technologies, and rising consumer demands for entertainment, leisure, and recreation. But what the “rural” has come to mean in light of these changes at the local, regional, and global levels remains open to question: a reinterpretation of rural identity, and it is heartening in Nepal’s case.
In order to rephrase rural tourism in Nepal, we must dare to move beyond the conventional. Perhaps the dominant meaning of “rural,” signified in the symbolic space of advertisements, is alterity: the rural is represented as some place other than urban, some time other than the present, and some experience other than the norm. The “rural” is imagined as a spatial and temporal retreat from urban environs, a place close to nature, rich in community ties, where life is lived at a slower pace in settlements situated amidst idyllic and nostalgic settings. These myths of a symbolic countryside are part of the larger stock of countryside ideals prevalent in popular culture. These myths are not, however, tied to any particular locality; they are “free-floating signifiers” of a symbolic countryside used to give meaning and character to any place in need of a “rural” identity. Modern economic development is based upon growth, and this growth increasingly takes place by ascribing economic value to non-material aspects. This can lead to a “commodification” of nature and culture. Nepal is poised to experience the same.
In a decade of practice and purpose at the rural level, the local population, within its own framework, has become more involved in expressing local identity and creating unique tourist attractions. Tourist entrepreneurs benefit from this local involvement because the symbolic value added to the tourist product creates economic advantage. This local involvement also creates public support for tourist entrepreneurs and project developers. The commodification of the countryside, by which cultural expressions become priced, provides a basis for the local population to experience continuity between old and new situations. Effectively, local engagement has also made possible a symbolic reconstruction of the history of a village or rural area for tourist purposes, keeping the past alive while advertently contributing to the symbolic reproduction of living rural heritage.
In the multilayered nature of rural space, with independent subnational governments, our countrysides are becoming the stage for a growing number of different activities and an increasingly diverse range of functions. In the process of development, any distinction between rural and urban functions is becoming increasingly difficult to make. Both rural and urban places are, to a growing extent, governed by processes that are not just local but also regional, national, and international. Each function is governed by its own particular types of processes. In this line of thinking, it is not the structure of space that is interesting to observe, but rather its structuring. It should also be recognized that many different modes of structuring will exist in the years to follow.
The certainty is this: Nepal is ever-changing.
The author is a Senior Manager at Nepal Tourism Board.
