Nepal will increase the permit fees for climbing Mount Everest by 36%, making the world’s tallest peak more expensive for mountaineers for the first time in nearly a decade, officials have said.
Income from permit fees and other spending by foreign climbers is a key source of revenue and employment for the poor country, which is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains.
A permit to climb 8,849-metre (29,032ft) Everest would cost $15,000 (£12,000), said Narayan Prasad Regmi, the director general of the Department of Tourism, announcing the rise in the $11,000 fee that has been in place for nearly a decade.
“The royalty [permit fees] had not been reviewed for a long time. We have updated them now,” Regmi said.
The new rate will come into effect from September and apply for the popular April-May climbing season along the standard South East Ridge, or South Col route, pioneered by the New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
Fees for the less popular September-November season and the rarely climbed December-February season will also increase by 36%, to $7,500 and $3,750 respectively.
Some expedition organisers said the increase, under discussion since last year, was unlikely to discourage climbers. About 300 permits are issued each year for Everest.
“We expected this hike in permit fees,” said Lukas Furtenbach of the Austria-based expedition organiser Furtenbach Adventures.
He said it was an “understandable step” from the government of Nepal. “I am sure the additional funds will be somehow used to protect the environment and improve safety on Everest,” Furtenbach said.
Regmi did not say what the extra revenue would be used for.
Hundreds of climbers try to scale Everest and several other Himalayan peaks every year. Nepal is often criticised by mountaineering experts for allowing too many climbers on Everest and doing little to keep it clean or to ensure climbers’ safety.
Regmi said campaigns to collect waste and rope fixing as well as other safety measures were undertaken regularly.
Climbers returning from the Everest say the mountain is becoming increasingly dry and rocky with less snow or other precipitation, which experts say could be the result of global warming or other environmental changes.
