In the wake of recurring natural calamities, particularly the recent flash floods in Nepal, travel and tourism industry stakeholders are calling for a rethink of conventional tourism planning and operations in the high-demand Himalayan destinations.
The Himalayas have always been a major draw for tourism, bringing together trekkers, mountaineers, hikers, pilgrims and leisure travellers from across India and overseas. But the region has also seen a worrying succession of natural disasters in the past decade, raising questions about how tourism in the mountains should be planned and managed in the years ahead.
From the Kedarnath floods in 2013 and the Kashmir floods in 2014 to the Nepal earthquake in 2015, Chamoli flash floods in 2021 and the Sikkim glacial lake outburst flood in 2023, the region has repeatedly seen the devastating impact of extreme weather and fragile mountain terrain. The recent ice-rock phenomenon and flash floods in Nepal’s Rasuwa area, bordering the Tibet region of China, have once again brought the issue into sharp focus.
With the Himalayas being the nerve-centre of India’s adventure tourism, TravelBiz Monitor spoke to some of the sector’s leading voices on whether tourism strategies and operating practices need to be revisited.
For Ajeet Bajaj, MD, Snow Leopard Adventures and former President of Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI), the immediate requirement is for adventure operators to become much more responsive to changing weather conditions.
“As adventure tour operators, we have to be extremely careful and factor in the weather forecasts much more seriously and quickly adapt to changing conditions,” Bajaj said.
According to him, operators may have very little time to change plans once conditions start deteriorating in the mountains.
“Agility to quickly change and adapt accordingly is important,” he said.
Mandip Singh Soin, MD, Ibex Expeditions, believes the industry needs to accept that some of its long-held assumptions about the mountains no longer hold.
“We have to recognise climate change as a fact of life. We have to re-orient ourselves,” Soin said.
He believes conventional understanding of seasons and the traditional windows for adventure activities can no longer be relied upon in the same way.
“Conventional intelligence and seasonalities and windows for adventure activities are no longer relevant,” he said.
Soin also called for governments to look at the Himalayas as one connected ecosystem rather than approaching large projects in individual stretches without considering their wider impact.
“Even the governments of the region should learn to look at the Himalayas in its entirety before launching any major projects of scale on the entire stretch,” he said.
His concern is that despite the disasters witnessed in different parts of the region, the lessons are yet to be adequately incorporated into planning. “Unfortunately, we are not learning lessons,” he said.
For Tejbir Singh Anand, MD, Holiday Moods Adventures and President, ATOAI, the recent Nepal disaster has also highlighted a very basic but critical issue—communication.
“Whatever happened in Nepal, nobody could do anything about it. But the thing that could have been done is basically a better communication system,” Anand said.
The lack of communication, he pointed out, left hundreds of people and their families anxious about the safety of their relatives and loved ones.
He particularly pointed to the long-standing demand for access to GPS systems and satellite phones for adventure operators.
India, he believes, needs to resolve the regulatory and inter-ministerial issues surrounding satellite communication. The matter involves several ministries, including Home Affairs, Tourism and Telecommunications.
“We definitely need a satellite phone condition and the GPS,” he said, adding that the industry has been raising the issue for more than a decade.
“If it happens in India, India will be instantly catapulted to a very safe destination because it is all about communication,” Anand said.
Anand also believes the recent Nepal floods should be examined in the context of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, one of the most significant pilgrimage operations in the Himalayan region.
“This can happen again also,” he said.
For the adventure tourism industry, he believes the lesson is equally relevant. Operators heading into the mountains need clear standard operating procedures covering communication, weather conditions and emergencies, he observed.
Deepak Raj Joshi, former CEO of the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), believes preparedness must extend beyond technology. It has to include infrastructure as well as greater awareness among communities and tourism operators.
Climate change-related calamities are not an isolated phenomenon in the Himalayas alone, he felt; even the Caribbean is threatened by rising sea levels. Therefore, to be better prepared is the most important thing for governments, stakeholders and communities, he said.
That preparation, according to him, should include better management of local settlements, stronger infrastructure, faster early-warning systems and greater awareness among local communities and tourism service providers.
The recent incident also showed that having an early-warning system alone may not be sufficient. Joshi said a warning had been communicated shortly before the incident, but there was a gap in understanding how severe the situation could become.
The frequency of disasters across the Himalayan region makes it increasingly difficult for the tourism industry to rely only on past weather patterns and fixed seasonal calendars.
The Kedarnath floods exposed the risks associated with extreme rainfall and large concentrations of pilgrims in fragile mountain areas. The 2015 Nepal earthquake demonstrated the vulnerability of tourism infrastructure and communities to seismic events, while the Chamoli disaster of 2021 and the Sikkim glacial lake outburst of 2023 brought the risks associated with unstable mountain environments and rapidly changing climatic conditions into sharper focus.
For the tourism industry, however, the answer is not to step away from the Himalayas. The region will continue to be one of India’s most important tourism assets, particularly for adventure and pilgrimage tourism.
What needs to change is the way tourism is planned and operated. Even environmentalists have repeatedly called for reimagining tourism in the region with strict adherence to carrying capacity of the ecologically fragile region.
More serious use of weather forecasts, flexibility in itineraries, reliable communication, access to GPS and satellite technology, better early-warning systems, stronger infrastructure and greater awareness at the community level will all have to become part of the tourism framework.
As Soin puts it, climate change is now “a fact of life”. For Himalayan tourism, recognising that fact—and planning accordingly—may be the most important lesson from the disasters of the past decade.
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