2010 Mongolia: Sustainable Tourism Development

Host Country & Organisation: Mongolia, Huvsgul Association of Tourism and Information (HATI)

Participants: Šárka Cihlářová, Therese Thümmler

GLEN Member Organisations: INEX-SDA, Czech Republic and ASA-Programm, Germany

Time Frame: August – November 2010

The internship “Sustainable Tourism Development” took place in Northern Mongolia, a region called Hovsgol. Its capital is town Moron, fifth biggest town in Mongolia with about 40 thousand inhabitants. Volunteers worked for local organization called Hovsgol Association of Tourism and Information (= HATI; in Mongolian: Khöwsgöl ayalal medeelel kholboo). Moron os situated in the second most visited area in Mongolia (after Gobi desert). The GLEN partner organization, HATI, deals with the issue of tourism, aiming at developing a sustainable tourism vision for Moron and the surrounding areas. This is supposed to help protect the local environment, strengthen the local economy, and support the local people in keeping and creating their own cultural lifestyle.

This region is one of the biggest tourism hot spots in Mongolia. The main purpose of tourists coming here is visiting the lake Hovsgol situated close to the Russian border, about 100 km in northern direction from Moron. It’s magnificent for both domestic and foreign tourists. As tourism is growing here, more and more people provide service for these tourists, such as guiding, translating, transport, accommodation services etc. In this region people suffer by poverty and may of them left countryside and set up in the town, where there is lack of employment opportunities. HATI tries to involve more local people to the tourism services, which are in the present still provided mostly by big tour operators from the caporal Ulaanbaatar.

Two volunteers, one German and one Czech, worked in the office of HATI. Firstly, they provided information to tourists. Secondly, they focused on capacity building of employees in local museum and students of tourism management. The results of the project were organized in series of English courses for museum employees and students, work on translation of exhibition in Hovsgol Museum and an exchange of thoughts and ideas about sustainable tourism between the participants, the partner organization and tourism department of local government.

Read both full reports here:

GLEN Final REPORT_Therese_MON_2010

GLEN FINAL REPORT Sarka MON 2010