Hanoi - Sustainable tourism is a promising livelihood option for people in the Himalayas. SNV, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the Nepal Tourist Board have organised a successful training course for six national tourist organisations in the Himalaya Region. (Bangladesh, Bhutan, China/Tibet, Myanmar, India and Nepal.)  A resource book and toolkit, based on lessons learned by SNV in pro- poor sustainable tourism in the Himalaya, are now available. Together they offer a market-compatible knowledge database for professionals and practitioners with an interest in the subject.

Studies have shown that tourism is a promising alternative livelihood option for people in the Himalayas. Various tourism development projects and plans have been formulated, developed, and implemented in different parts of the Himalayas to promote sustainable mountain tourism – some on a state and national scale, others set up as (sub) regional collaboration projects.

One of these subregional initiatives is the South Asian Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC)Tourism Development Plan. Commissioned by the SASEC Tourism Working Group (TWG) for the initial four SASEC member countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal (Sri Lanka joined in 2005),this plan builds upon the existing tourism plans of these four Himalayan countries. The TWG agreed that the plan should be a thematic framework based on common themes for future tourism development.

Training programme
At the request and with the support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, and Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), developed and organised a training programme on facilitating sustainable tourism projects from June 12 to 17, 2006, at the ICIMOD Headquarters in Khumaltar, Nepal. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, China/Tibet and Myanmar selected five representatives each to attend this training.

Resource Book and Toolkit
Given the success of the training course and the need of participants to receive more theoretical and practical reference materials on the subject, ICIMOD and SNV  transformed the original course materials into comprehensive reference material, resulting into a Resource Book (Volume 1) and Toolkit (Volume 2).
Some of the original course contents have been adapted to make them more suitable to the needs of the tourism industry. Some subjects originally covered in the training programme have been omitted altogether (such as proposal writing), and some new subjects have been added or expanded upon (such as enterprise development for sustainable mountain tourism, market linkages, and partnerships in sustainable mountain tourism clusters). The aim was to produce a market-compatible and more complete knowledge database that transcends the original purpose as a source of further reference for the original trainees, and which reaches out to a wider network of professionals and practitioners with an interest in the subject.