Can Nepal Profit as the Credits Roll?

Around May 2025, images of British actor Tom Hiddleston shooting a scene at Patan Durbar Square did the rounds on Nepali social media. At the same time, people shared images spotting American actor Willem Dafoe around Bouddha and Everest Basecamp. Speculations ran in predictable fashion, with some suggesting another Marvel film, similar to Doctor Strange, for which Kathmandu had lent its rooftops and alleyways to Marvel’s sorcerer around a decade earlier. However, it was later revealed that the duo was here to shoot Tenzing, an Apple-backed feature on Tenzing Norgay Sherpa’s 1953 ascent of Mount Everest. The film was shot across Kathmandu, Patan, Sindhupalchowk, Bandipur and more.

This isn’t Nepal’s first appearance on the silver screen, and certainly not its last. The country has been featured in pieces of media around the world. Hollywood productions by the likes of Seven Years in Tibet, Everest, Doctor Strange, and several others have used Nepal as a backdrop. Similarly, there are many instances of the neighboring Indian film industry shooting scenes or films in Nepal.

Given these bouts of attention Nepal gets through its appearances in films, there is a potential for the country to recoup economic returns through its cultural visibility. Nepal can strike while the iron is hot, capitalizing its time on screen as a marketing opportunity, attracting tourists and film-buffs, as a must-visit destination through film tourism.

The Economics of a Location

To understand what Nepal is leaving on the table in terms of film-induced tourism revenue, we first need to understand the scale of the entertainment industry, and where film tourism fits within this. The global film and television business is projected to grow to roughly USD 169.9 billion by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate of 7.2%. Likewise, streaming has democratized film consumption, with global streaming giant Netflix, amassing 325 million subscribers by the end of 2025. Even as traditional cinema revenue continues to grow in parallel, streaming has largely captured the worldwide market, valued at around USD 277.25 billion by 2026. It is in this light that production has taken a global route, with studios scouring unique backdrops to give the viewers something new.

Within this larger industry lies a small microcosm of the film tourism business. Also referred to as cine-tourism or film-induced tourism, this practice is a trend of audiences chasing the physical locations, cultures, and landscapes they encounter on the screen. According to KPMG estimates, the global film tourism industry will reach USD 110.79 billion by 2028.

Well-documented cases exist of the mechanization of films into a full-blown tourism institution. New Zealand was home to the The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Since 2001, people have spent an estimated USD 620 million to visit JRR Tolkien’s fictional world Middle-Earth, a phenomenon which has also been termed Tolkien tourism. Similarly, Iceland saw a surge in tourist arrivals from around 460,000 in 2011 to 2.3 million in 2018, which coincided with the popular series Game of Thrones using the country as a backdrop in several of its scenes. The same series has been credited for boosting Northern Ireland’s economy by injecting GBP 251 million into its economy since the series began production in 2010.

For a country such as Nepal, which is dependent on remittances and foreign aid, film-tourism can be a welcome change for the economy, though at a modest scale compared to the aforementioned revenue sources. As of 2025, tourism made up around 5.7% of Nepal’s GDP. As a diversification play, film tourism sits closer as a low-hanging fruit, than most alternatives amid Nepal’s policymakers’ push to strengthen the digital and creative-economy. A two-fold approach, first attracting productions to shoot within Nepal, and then converting the visibility into tourist arrivals is imperative.

Where Nepal Stands Right Now

Notwithstanding the screen time Nepal has received globally throughout the years, the benefits the country receives hasn’t been on par. Productions usually arrive, shoot their scenes, and leave. This too, just for a select few series of films or shows across a long span of time. Nepal hasn’t been able to translate this into opportunities for film tourism. While a spike in tourism influx from China has been attributed to a 2013 Chinese film, Up the Wind, set in Nepal, other instances of film-induced tourism in Nepal are less talked about. Nepal’s cultural and geographical diversity can support more than that. The full potential has not yet been realized because of various roadblocks in place.

Apart from the obvious infrastructural and geographical constraints that Nepal has, other logistics behind shooting a film in Nepal also tend to be arduous. For foreign producers to shoot a film in Nepal, they must first attain approval from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MoCIT), through a local fixer, which is also another obligatory requirement. Furthermore, to shoot in specific heritage sites such as the Kathmandu, Patan, or Bhaktapur Durbar Squares or in conservation areas like Annapurna and Manaslu, producers need to acquire a letter of consent from the respective authorities. There are additional steps that producers need to follow before filming starts. For instance, using drones for filming requires approval from the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), a process that could stretch past months on end. At a 2025 film policy dialogue convened around Kathmandu’s 2023 designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Film, even the president of the Film Association pointed to hurdles such as a 33% tax burden levied by the government through the Film Development Board, and the absence of proper studios as reasons for the decline in Nepali films produced annually.  To add to that, neighboring India, with a billion-dollar film industry, offers cheap-labor costs, and government incentivized production schemes, which foreign productions prefer. Nepal clearly lacks these institutional incentives that could attract more filmmakers to shoot in the country.

What Nepal Can Learn

The successes of New Zealand, Iceland, or Northern Ireland in cine-tourism weren’t coincidental. Behind the scenes, the countries had robust and dedicated public agencies that ensured favorable conditions for filming. For instance, a large part of Lord of The Rings Trilogy’s success is accredited to The New Zealand Film Commission, New Zealand government’s film regulatory body, for negotiating co-production treaties, administering production grants, and acting as a single point of contact for international studios. Nepal can learn a great deal from New Zealand’s authorities, allowing incentives such as tax-cuts, and marketing assistance for films.

Similarly, Nepal can also draw from Iceland’s tourism board and its roles in managing destinations, and quality standards among tourism operators so that the surge of visitors wouldn’t overwhelm their system. Iceland capped their cruise-ship arrivals and built an entire-visitor management campaign to deal with the surge of the Game of Thrones visitors. This could be an important foresight for Nepal, which usually struggles to keep pace with the volume of tourists in peak season, for instance in the Everest Base Camp trekking route and in heritage areas.

Achieving the Dream

For Nepal to capitalize on film-induced tourism, it needs to first position itself as an attractive hub for film producers. To do so, streamlining and digitizing the filming permit process is essential to avert bureaucratic hurdles. A dedicated agency housed either within the Nepal Tourism Board or built anew, with the authority to issue permits and negotiate with foreign production teams, as well as strategically market locations, would be one such idea. This would replace the current approval channels spread across departments and ministries.

Furthermore, the lack of dedicated film studios catering to the needs of foreign producers must be addressed. Encouragingly, the government’s Tourism Policy 2082 (2025) envisions construction film studios that meet international standards, and visa fee waivers for artists. Nepal’s Tourism Board and Film Development Board have also recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding, with the aim of promoting Nepal’s tourism sector through films. These are steps that can produce meaningful results if followed through with steadfastness.  Similarly, film festivals such as the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival, and Film Southasia have added to the growing momentum for proliferation of films, and film culture at the grassroots level. This could help build a film-literate cohort that can accommodate foreign productions and independent filmmakers.

As Nepal’s economy grows and it eyes graduation from the UN’s Least Developed Country status, the country needs to think of ways to diversify its revenue streams beyond traditional industries. Film-tourism is one such underexplored and highly viable and dynamic option with great potential within Nepal’s growing tourism sector. With the right reforms and government engagement, Nepal can position itself as a global hub for film production, drawing in revenue, tourism, and adoration.