Hi everyone-

I was able to talk with Tejanath this morning and get some updates. One of the biggest concerns that I have at this point is that the local community seems to be very focused on basing this project around the www.sankhuwasabha.com website. While I do agree that if properly developed, this can be a useful marketing tool, I cautioned again about having the website become the primary focus of this project.

As I understand it, the Arun Valley Concern Centre would like to support existing tourism efforts within their district. They want to do this by helping market the interesting things within the district on the website. I really feel like there is potential there to do something more than that. I've asked them to consider thinking of other ways they might be able to impact tourism in the region apart from a website.

I also asked that Tejanath take a good look at the questions you have all posed about things that are important to you as a travelor and things that you would want to know if you were coming to the region. I think you've all posed critical questions and very good ones at that. Tejanath said that he has read through them all, printed them and is using these as a guide.

I explained to Tejanath that right now, I really don't feel the project goals are as well defined as they need to be. He said that he hopes Nabuur volunteers can help them get the website constructed the way that it needs to be. He is open to hearing other ideas about how to proceed, but really we need input on that.

Regarding the website: Tejanath has paid for the www.Sankhuwasabha.com website. He has administrative passwords to add information to the site from Khandbari, but he cannot change information that is already there. The developer is supposed to be changing it so that eventually he will be able to do both. Tejanath has told him that he will not pay him further until it is fixed.

Tejanath has been encouraged to focus the website on the tourism concept rather than the child sponsorship program. He is in agreement with this, so eventually the sponsorship program will have less of a prominent focus on the site.

I will be working with Tejanath to go through all of the questions posted so far and he will be working on gathering information to answer these questions. Then we can begin to focus on how to best present it.

I'm sorry things aren't more specific than this yet, but this project is just beginning and as I said, we really need your input, ideas and suggestions to help clearly define the best way forward. The goal is to promote tourism within Sankhuwasabha by supporting existing organizations. Suggestions for how to best accomplish this are most welcome!

Warm regards-

Jennifer

Hi there, i've been browsing through some of the ideas, a suggestion would have been to actually complete a marketing plan, with a website being one of the desired outcomes. This could change some of the existing ideas and place things in a diffirent perspective, for excample: what is the desired target market/group, since the design of a website would need to be based on this also. Hope this info is of use.

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Jaco

Hi Jaco-

I agree with you and think a marketing plan is very important. Lotte and others have also provided similar recommendations. So far, in talking with Tejanath, the local community has chosen to focus on the website first. Unfortunately, I feel this has really stalled any progress here at Nabuur, largely because the local community still needs to clarify the direction they want to take the project.

My understanding is that the Arun Valley Concern center wants to support existing tourism throughout the Sankhuwasabha District, but we will need their help in identifying how to best do that and what level of involvement/support they wish to provide. Tejanath's communication with me about this project to date has solely involved the development of the website (www.sankhuwasabha.com) which was started prior to their project being posted here at Nabuur.

If you have thoughts on how to structure a marketing plan in relation to tourism, I would love to hear your ideas and will happily share/discuss them with Tejanath.

Happy New Year-

Jennifer