Open or take over a guest house in Nepal

Hi Unicorn55,

Welcome to Expat.com

I have created a new thread with your post on the Nepal forum for more visibility and for a better interaction with the other members.

Thanks

Priscilla

Hi,
     i am in pokhara and i have a travel agency here.i can help you on this business.i am at lakeside.i have experience on this.are u in pokhara? (moderated: do not share your phone number on a public forum pls ).i look forward to reply from you
                                                                                                              with regards
                                                                                                                   jit

Hi,
     are u in pokhara.we can discuss on this
                                                                              with regards
                                                                                     jit

it's not going to be easy. You will have to network with a lot of travel agencies and deal with competition. Do you speak nepali  have you lived in Nepal ? What is your visa situation. My nepali wife and I were going to do this but decided not to. Turns out it is very difficult to find nice pretty places have a guest house. Lastly not to mention the political problems that sometimes arise in Nepal. Also the load shedding is a major pain in the butt but a generator would solve that. Good luck though.

Not  quite as easy as that, in Nepal.  It is required that you invest a certain minimum amount in US$ or Euros or other foreign currency. It used to be $50,000 but now, you can inquire further but I think you will find that the minimum has been raised and is now well in excess of that figure. Secondly, you will of course have to register your "foreign investment" with DOI - Department of Industry and get their prior written authorization before you either "open or take over a guest house"  and for this, you will require to go through all the usual formalities, and I would advise you to hire a good and reliable lawyer in Kathmandu, to help you.  My only advice is take care to chose a good one.....Be very selective.
Given a choice, I would also advise that you try and structure your deal in such a way, with the creation of a new company, so that you control it 100% - in contrast to being 50-50 or 49-50 or 51-50% in partnership with local investors in an existing set-up.  All I can tell you with 100% assurance is that setting one up so that you have full and complete control is that it CAN BE DONE. (or perhaps better still, seek to buy out an existing foreign owned  "resort or tourism authorized" company and purchase that. You'll save yourself a lot of problems and time, too. I know of at least one foreigner who might well be a seller, but then it is all a question of price, and I don't know what kind of budget you have in mind? Think it over. Food for thought anyway!!

If you are interested to take or run any kind of guest house around Pokhara i can help you on this     matter. I would like to know what kind of guest house you are thinking to take and how long you are going to run it.
You can write to me  and i would like to inform you that now a days i am at Kathmandu.

Dear guest, Greeting from aryal.

Dear guest, Greeting from aryal. i am working at hotel in kathmandu , if you want to open hotel or guest house i can help you , if you want !!!
Best regards
aryal

You do need to make a substantial annual investment but maybe if you started an NGO that trained young people from disadvantaged backgrounds for a job in the hospitality industry the rules might be different
Good luck!
Catherine

Dear cathening , Greeting from timothy aryal.  sir you can start Ngo and small guest house in nepal , if you want any help about this matter please contact me , i am working at hotel as a manager , i have lots of  experience nepal,india,singapore, qatar and dubai  as a F&B manager.my email is ([email protected]) and you can call me at +9779844730111 .
Best regards
timothy aryal

Thanks, but it is unicorn55 who is looking to run a guesthouse in Nepal.
Best regards
Catherine

Sir namaste , i going to manage the guest house ,  if you going to give me a chance . i am ready for thats sir !
Best regards
timothy aryal( from nepal)

its really not worth the time, effort and investment.

doing business in Nepal is almost impossible due to two things:

- the infrastructure is underdeveloped.
- the locals can not be trusted with just about anything; they'll promise one things that they know they can't fulfill just to get your money and then they vanish.  otherwise they'll blame it on the state etc.

i've lived and worked in more than 20 countries as an expat so far; and honestly i can't praise one thing about nepal or its people.

Sir namaste, that is up to you . you can believe or not , but i give you guarantee for this thinks . your invest money is save , if you want to do business  with me  in nepal , other people i dont no  Sir. i am working 3 star hotel as a manager . i worked Qatar , singapore,dubai and india . but i don't thinks   i am  or nepali people are wrong , not a all .
dear sir if you want to do business i going to welcome you.don't wary for nepali people .
best regards
timothy aryal

ok tara prasad, after reading your post now; i've complete trust in you.

PM any great business plan you got.

Dear sir , greeting from Timothy aryal ! Yes , I got plan for hotel business in nepal. You can start from kathmandu,then pokhara, chitwan and lumbani. Then you are successful in nepal. In Nepal lots of turist people coming every years but they can't get any good hotel and good hospitalety. That's way if you want to do business please you can start. this is good time! Best regards
Timothy Aryal (9844730111)

Nepal has huge possibilities, for its bordered by two giant economies (India and China). Not from hearsay but I have actually spent one month in Pokhara, doing nothing but just looking around for the possibilities. Lake-side, no doubt is hell expensive, so it would be easy for likes of me, for beginners, to start any venture there, but that doesn't mean end of the world.
I would suggest you to take  a running guesthouse (if you could find any) and then steer it into your desired direction. In pokhara, almost every house has a guesthouse but what they are yet to understand is that putting bed in a room and hanging board infront of your house doesn't amount to guesthouse. Room were clear, prices reasonable, but the miasma , the atmosphere, was missing. So, if you could fill that vacancy then business is yours no matter how many guesthouses are there in Pokhara.

If you need, or anybody for that matter, need a volunteer, you have an option to write to me.

There is a Google group called ktmktm If you do a search for it you can join it. There are many postings for real estate and businesses on a regular basis. I'd suggest that you join that group and put a post there.

Just be careful of Nepali trolls you will meet who truly believe we can never run out of money. These are tips from my eBook, Nepal: A Tourist's Manual:

Put everything in writing. Nepali can have extremely short memories when it comes to doing business with tourists.

Also make sure you are on the right side of the law at all times. If you get cheated and you were doing business on a tourist visa you could not only loose your money, but get into trouble with the authorities, as well.