The 21^st century has seen a huge boom in internet usage and hence the IT sector under it has flourished. In the process, many social media sites have popped up and have reached hands of billions of people worldwide. It is used and viewed by people from all corners of the world and this has created a form of global connecting and sharing site where people all kind of random stuffs from what they eat today, where they went and their opinions and beliefs are freely shared. The number of posts shared and posted in the internet per day is beyond comprehension and in today’s world, internet has without a doubt been an integral part of the world.

With this insurgence, many new global trends have developed, and one of such concept is the concept of Vlogging, which refers to the act of posting and making short videos. These types of videos are made by individuals and are posted in YouTube, Facebook and many other social media sites that are popular in the internet. These videos are shared hundreds and thousands of times and are viewed by millions of people. The Vlogging trend has got a lot of momentum and there are many popular travel Vloggers who have established themselves as popular Social Media Influencers. These people usually travel to different countries and places and make a Vlog about it including videos of their journey, places they visited, the cuisine and basic lifestyle of the place of their visit. This gives millions of viewers in the internet who are sitting on their couch get a firsthand experience of that place from a third person view through people who shares their likes and dislikes of the place and every other details he feels necessary to include. Watching a Vlog feels like you are talking to a friend who is trying to give you first hand information about the place they’ve gone to. As a result of this concept, there are many established Vloggers all over the world. Some of the famous travel Vloggers include Drew Binsky, fearless and Far, Kold ,Syfia Adriana. They have millions of followers and subscribers in various online platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Tiktok where they post their travel Vlogs to the countries and places they have been travelling. They provide honest opinion about the place and this way of providing first hand information has been preferred by many. As a result, they have been able to amass millions of followers who watch their videos daily.

Besides video Vlogging another popular concept is developed by a website called Tripadvisors where people can get advice and suggestions from sources they trust about accommodation, flight tickets, meals and locations to visit about certain places they are about to visit. The website has estimated 50 million viewers daily.

Nepal could use such booming websites and platform to place itself in front of the world by employing people to Vlog, write, and click photos and post on such social media sites. It can even collaborate and invite famous Vloggers to visit the country, explore exciting places and culture and give a review about it. There are many instances where countries invite such social media personalities. One such instance is when the Government of UAE collaborated with NAS Daily (a popular Vlogger) to promote UAE. His videos have generated millions of views which definitely act as a soft source of advertisement and help to spread the word about the country.

Hence, it’s time for Nepal, its tourism board to shift focus from the traditional means of advertisement and promotion and rather move along the time and make an paradigm shift into the IT world by introducing and applying such new concepts under its plans and polices for improving Travel and Tourism, as increasing number of people who would make such videos based on Nepal would surely help to make Nepal a bucket list priority tourist destination for many couch tourists watching those videos online. Henceforth, the government should look into creating and helping creators who aspire to become travel Vloggers based on Nepal and help the existing travel Vloggers as their content starts to reach to a larger audience, Nepal is bound to see a positive impact to its tourism industry. Hence such an elevation is necessary from the traditional means of advertisement in order to diversify and increase Nepal’s tourism inflow and attract the next generation of tourists as Nepal continues to aim to become one of the leading tourism hotspot for the upcoming decade.

Bishesh Narshing Amatya

Kathmandu University School of Management (KUSOM)