Nepal's mountain tourism industry just received what officials are calling a "serious warning" after floods tore through the Himalayas. The warning is that mountains sometimes have water on them. And that water moves.
The country's adventure tourism sector is now panicking ahead of peak travel season because apparently nobody considered that the tallest mountain range on Earth might occasionally experience weather events. This is the same industry that sells $50,000 Everest climbs to dentists from Ohio who train by walking up escalators at the mall.
The devastation is real. The economic impact will be severe. But let's appreciate the risk management framework here. Nepal built an entire economy around convincing wealthy foreigners to pay guides to drag them up frozen death traps, then acted surprised when the frozen death traps occasionally behaved like frozen death traps.
Technical analysis suggests a clear head-and-shoulders pattern forming in Nepal's "not getting killed by nature" sector. The neckline broke when the floods hit. Resistance is now established at "basic geological reality."
Retail traders are already scanning their apps for Nepal tourism ETFs to buy the dip. Finally, a way to profit from human suffering that's more direct than shorting healthcare stocks. These are the same people who think "adventure tourism" means staying at a Marriott with unreliable WiFi.
The peak travel season approaches. The industry needs customers. Those customers need mountains that don't actively try to murder them with water. It's a tough needle to thread.
Nepal's tourism board will issue a statement assuring visitors that the floods were a one-time event that will never happen again in a region defined by monsoons and glacial melt. Confidence restored, some f*cking guy named Derek will book his trek and tell everyone at his CrossFit gym that he's basically a mountaineer now.
Photo by Sushanta Rokka on Unsplash
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