The first Meaningful Tourism & Artificial Intelligence Workshop had “Meaningful Tourism & AI” as the topic. The workshop was held on August 10, 2026, successfully, with almost 40 participants from more than 20 different companies and organisations. Tour operators, travel agencies, but also tech companies and DMCs sent one or several participants; one company gave six members of their management the chance to take part. The morning was filled with two presentations in the morning by your humble editor about Meaningful Tourism for Nepal and about AI within a Meaningful Tourism Economy by the co-director of MTIL Nepal, Suman Baral, following by a healthy Nepali networking lunch. In the afternoon, work groups were formed, one of which discussed developing KPIs for all stakeholders in a specific area near Kathmandu. Another group developed an immersive product for visitors to Bhaktapur, one of the three former capitals of Nepal within the Kathmandu Valley, which planned to teach Newari woodcarving to Chinese visitors, including planting a tree at the end to compensate for the wood used during the week-long training. Two groups tackled the question of how to improve the experience of luxury tourism visitors.
Nepal is getting a number of new five-star hotels and new direct air connections to Pokhara, the “tourism capital” of the country. However, outside the hotels, customers are confronted with poor transport infrastructure and no specific offers, for example, for business and first-class passengers upon arrival at the airport. The “flexible” approach to keeping schedules is considered normal for domestic tourists and maybe also for backpackers, but will not be welcomed by guests with more money than time. Another example discussed was the lack of a single certified Halal restaurant or hotel in the country. Some companies are claiming to be Halal, but without an independently certified proof that is keeping customers away from the country, as participants of the workshop could tell from personal experience of lost business because of this lack of preparation. Nepal has very good air connections with the Middle East and also with Southeast Asia, home of many affluent Muslims, however the number of visitors from these countries is very small.
In all group discussions, the role of AI was discussed as a tool both for the development and execution of offers and also for the marketing in different source markets.
The next workshop in Nepal will take place on September 24, 2026. The length will be improved from six hours to eight hours, as the experience of the first workshop showed that more time is needed to get results and impulses for the practical application of Meaningful Tourism tools.
For more information, please contact us at office@mtil-nepal.org or call +977 976 856 6567.