Submitted by : Arjun Koirala
Abstract
This thesis applies the concept of threshold approach in planning, taking a case of tourism in Dhulikhel Municipality. The infrastructure base of our towns and the efforts to promote tourism and address the needs to local people in a country like ours raise the issue of how much and until when a town can serve the tourist and its people. The national developmental goals and policies of Nepal are inclined towards exploiting tourism resources more intensely in the coming years. The approach of integrating tourism and settlement in planning to achieve complementary concept in terms of infrastructure and services has been found lacking, and this study integrates the both by assessing the existing infrastructure and services in terms of the needs of tourism and local populating, and establishes boundaries for urban expansion to suggest an effecting sharing of infrastructures.
The local leaders, professionals and the local people realize the potential of tourism industry for the development of Dhulikhel. A shift of beneficiary population form 7.06% (at present) to 29.44% (expected) is one of the best indicators that explains the potential and need of’plans to harness the tourism benefits. The strategic location of Dhulikhel for tourism shows the need to treat it as a nodal point for tourism. The in-house tourism development is regarded as one of the strongest tools to involve local community in tourism and seek for conservation of the historic settlements.
The potential areas for urban expansion from the consideration of thresholds due to natural and man-made environments are established around the traditional settlements Dhulikliel and Shreekhandapur with the advantage to benefit from existing infrastructure and develop a new system of infrastructure and services for a clustered settlement. Because of a number of constraints (basically time and limited scope of this thesis) a number of further areas of research are suggested which help test the recommendations formulated in this study.
As IAP as a planning tool is being used in many of the municipalities in the country, and the Ninth Plan also emphasizes on integrating infrastructure programmes with tourism development. the study of this nature finds relevant ground to conclude that the concept of benefiting local population through the sharing of infrastructure for tourism is essential.