AmaDablam Adventure Group
Blazing a pioneering trail
It was Mr. Ravi Chandra Hamal’s discovery of the beauty of the Himalaya and its people that led to his establishing one of Nepal’s most successful adventure companies, AmaDablam Adventure Group, in 1979. Barely three years later, it became the largest foreign exchange earning adventure company as well as the biggest employer - a status it maintained for the next decade.
Mr. Hamal believes that innovation and creativity are the survival tactics in a competitive world. Thus, AmaDablam, named after the 6,812-m peak in the Everest region, has many firsts to its credit. Training and using Nepalese group leaders, thus doing away with expensive group leaders from the West and generating local employment, was particularly revolutionary. This concept was soon replicated by other tour operators. AmaDablam also pioneered many popular trekking routes in Nepal with Mr. Hamal himself often leading the reconnaissance trips. From its very inception, nature conservation has been AmaDablam’s guiding principle. It funds afforestation programs, was the first company to use kerosene instead of firewood on treks and also initiated eco-trekking workshops to propagate these ideas.
Marketing its products directly to an international network of tour operators, thereby making Nepal a primary destination from where visitors embark to neighboring Tibet, Bhutan or India, has been another pioneering step taken by AmaDablam. The establishment of a resort in Daman instead of Chitwan, Pokhara, Nagarkot or Dhulikhel where most investors are putting their money, is a noteworthy effort by AmaDablam to attract tourists to a new destination.
Philanthropy is very much a part of AmaDablam. It looks after its staff well with generous employment packages. It provides its porters with warm clothing, leather boots and tents. It has assisted in the building of a shelter for porters at the base of Island Peak and is providing funds to build another one in Lubuche, near the Everest Base Camp. On the social front, it has provided furniture to schools and tools to technical schools, assisted in the electrification of Shimbhanjyang village and provided sewing machines and accessories, as well as trainers, for a home for handicapped people in Kathmandu. It also provides energy food to blood donors as well as 10 educational scholarships to destitute children on a yearly basis.
AmaDablam today consists of five companies - AmaDablam Adventure Group; Everest Panorama Resort in Daman; AmaDablam Institute of Tourism Management that offers international quality education for hotel, travel and cargo/courier agency managers as well as inflight service personnel; AmaDablam Travels & Tours; and Himalayan River Adventure. The Group employs over 500 personnel. It has two more projects coming up soon. No other company, in Nepal or elsewhere, offers the range of adventures - from five days to five weeks, gentle to expeditionary and graded holidays - with a host of unsurpassed quality inclusions at unbeatable prices as AmaDablam does. It has over 300 scheduled departures to more than 50 destinations, tailor-made itineraries, its own fleet of vehicles, imported equipment and air ticket stock. It is a wholesaler and retailer of quality travel products worldwide. For further details, contact AmaDablam Adventure Group, P.O. Box 3035, Kamal Pokhari, Kathmandu; Tel: 415372/3, 428500; Fax: 977-1-416029; E-mail: himalaya. sales@amadablam. wlink.com.np; Website: www.himala yasale-amadablam. com or amadablam-adventure.com
Ravi Chandra Hamal has a Master’s degree in Commerce and, after joining a course in Chartered Accountancy, began his early career in auditing. Later, he took to research which led him to join CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). CIDA’s projects took him to the mountains and eventually into tourism. Besides having served on the Nature Conservation Committee of TAAN (Trekking Agents Association of Nepal) as its chairman, Mr. Hamal has also written a booklet on trekking for the then Department of Tourism. Many of his insightful recommendations on sustainable tourism development have also been implemented.
Despite being a successful tourism entrepreneur, Mr. Hamal is not happy with the state of tourism in Nepal. He believes that Nepal is lagging far behind as far as the basic fundamentals of tourism development are concerned.
"Nepal is still focused on the products that were developed 30 years ago," he says. Unless new products and marketing strategies emerge, along with development in tourism infrastructure, Nepal, as a destination, will be at the end of the line in a few years’ time, he adds.
Marketing is virtually non-existent except for some passive promotion, he says. In this regard, Mr. Hamal has been advocating the creation of tourist offices in the Nepalese embassies in the major tourist generating countries since 1987.
Mr. Hamal also sees the need for another international airport in the country which will allow larger aircraft and major international airlines to operate to Nepal and offer competitive fares.
He asserts that the regularization of prices to protect the tourism industry from unhealthy competition; evaluation of the quality of services and the carrying capacity of hotels, lodges, resorts, travel agencies, and trekking and rafting companies; and the proper bonding and licensing of all tour companies to safeguard the interests of the tourists are some of the other issues that need to be addressed immediately.
He says that there are no restrictions on the number of tourists entering the national parks or the number of lodges that can be built there. It will soon be too late, and the very things that the tourists come to see will have gone forever. He believes that all parties should gear themselves up to be more serious and vigorous if Nepal is to truly benefit from tourism.
(Source: Nepal Travel Trade Journal, vol 6 No. 2, October - November, 1999)