Tourism entrepreneurs' expectation from the provincial government in touristic city – Pokhara, Nepal

Purpose This paper explores entrepreneurs' expectation from the new provincial government to protect sociocultural values for promoting touristic city – Pokhara, Nepal. Design/methodology/approach The purposive sampling technique was applied to source the information from the respondents resided at Pokhara. Structured questionnaire techniques and cross-sectional descriptive method were used to collect data from 393 tourism entrepreneurs to explore their understanding and existing situations. Findings About 85.5% of the respondents argue that the new government system has affected their business and 58.27% feel procedural complexities due to new political administrative system. Natural beauty, growing pollution, unmanaged urbanizations, good flow of the tourists and sustainability of the touristic city resulted as main aspects of Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats. The entrepreneurs expect that newly formed provincial government should provide business security, formulate appropriate tax policy and provision for business insurance scheme for smooth operation, growth and sustainability of their tourism entrepreneurship. Research limitations The research was taken in Pokhara, only the entrepreneurs mostly resided at Lakeside were taken and wider research across the whole city would give a more balanced perspective. Practical implication Recommendations are made with the aim of uplifting entrepreneurship milieu in the touristic city Pokhara in order to promote tourism business of Pokhara. Social implication This research can help local authority to take local residents' and entrepreneurs' experience into consideration for creating better plan and policies for the well-being of Pokhara. Originality/value This is the first paper to provide data from the perspective of entrepreneurs' expectation from newly formed Gandaki provincial government in Pokhara, Nepal.