While exploring the promotion of 'adventure tourism' in Southasia recently, I came across an impressive number of options. Apart from the obvious candidates – white-water rafting, diving, trekking, mountaineering – one can also go whale-watching in Sri Lanka, heli-skiing in India or honey hunting in Nepal. Yet why is running not on any of these lists?
I regularly run long-distance trails and, admittedly, am thoroughly biased. But the relevance of the question lies beyond this personal interest. Travel and tourism are estimated to account for nearly 10 percent of global gross domestic product, 11 percent of world exports and more than nine percent of overall investment. Tourism is labour-intensive, and thus an important machine for job creation. For most Southasian countries, tourism is an important means of earning hard currency – and for some, such as Nepal and Bhutan, a crucial one. And within this core industry, adventure tourism is said to be an important growth sector, and having a thriving tourism sector requires destinations and their operators to make use of every advantage they have. For a runner like me, the potential for tourism based on participation in running events to Nepal, India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka seems self-evident. Why, then, do such trails not exist?
A reasonably comprehensive count of events attracting adventure runners to Southasia shows that events do in fact take place, mostly in India and Nepal, with about 22 happening yearly. Multi-day stage races are the most common package on offer, while next come one-day events that are only accessible if one buys into an organised itinerary culminating in the run. (The internationally known Mt Everest marathons are prime examples of the latter type.) Outside India, there are just a few races that promote the destination, with the race itself generally the attraction – meaning that participation is open to all who pay the registration fee. India has several regular marathons but, again, none of these are being marketed by its tourism authorities. All the same, considering the existence of these events, the absence of running from the tourism boards' lists of adventure activities is even more puzzling.
Does the Subcontinent lack something that makes it difficult for the concept of adventure running to take hold here? That hardly seems the case. Every Saturday morning, when I go out jogging in the Kathmandu Valley, I come across other runners, many of them Nepali. The running virus may not have hit Nepal as it has Europe, the US and some Southeast and East Asian countries, but it certainly is around. The same is true for other Southasian countries, where running for exercise has become an increasingly common phenomenon.