Many people in Khumbu now earn money from tourism, but farming has not disappeared. Families still grow part of their own food throughout the year. That matters because our tourism economy is intensely seasonal.
Most visitors arrive during October and November or March and April. For the other half of the year, there is very little tourism work. Some lodge and shop owners go to Kathmandu during the quiet months if they have earned enough during the season, which most of them do.
Without tourism, many of us believe Khumbu would still be remote, difficult to reach and trapped in poverty.
Before tourism developed, very little money circulated locally. People exchanged goods and services directly. Today, almost every household is connected with tourism in some way, and money has become part of nearly every transaction.
The number of lodges and shops has grown enormously over the last few decades. New houses continue to appear. Electricity now reaches almost every village, generated cleanly through the large hydroelectric plant in the Thame valley, smaller local generators or solar panels.
Inside Sagarmatha National Park, we see four main forms of tourism: ordinary trekking, trekking peaks, mountaineering and cultural tourism. Each brings different visitors and different pressures, but all depend on the same mountain environment and local communities.
Tourism gave Khumbu roads into the wider world, but every new lodge and visitor now tests how much growth our mountains can carry.
We ask tourists to take their rubbish away and follow the guidelines displayed throughout the region. Most of the rules are simple: protect the landscape, respect local culture and avoid unnecessary pressure on forests and water.
Tourism income has changed people’s lives. It created businesses, employment, electricity and access to goods that previous generations could hardly imagine. The question is no longer whether tourism can help Khumbu. We already know that it can.
Our concern now is whether we can manage the success carefully enough that the growth which lifted Khumbu does not begin to damage what made people come here.