Community-Based Homestay Tourism and Its Influence on Indigenous Gastronomic Heritage

Abstract

The Panauti homestay project is an emerging community-based homestay initiative in Nepal. Panauti is the homeland of the indigenous Newar people, known for their rich gastronomic heritage. However, the ethnic food heritage of the Newars is rapidly changing. This article examines the impact of community-based homestay tourism on the indigenous Newar community in Panauti through the lens of the local gastronomic heritage. Semistructured interviews and participant observations were used as qualitative methods during first authors' 3-month stay in the homestay destination. The findings identify and discuss the significant influence of homestay tourism on the food culture of the host families. The bottom-up tourism approach characteristic of community homestays has helped to sustain many elements of the traditional ethnic gastronomy in Panauti's rapidly changing food culture. Alongside this, tourism has helped to adapt the indigenous culinary heritage to influences from other food cultures, making it more eclectic and dynamic.