The mother groups in Sickles are carrying out their homestay business at their own, who also follow a set a rule to manage their community business. The village rests in the vicinity of Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA), which was established in 1992. Many women in sickles village used to produce indigenous handicrafts, and were engaged in ethnic knitting and weaving business, who also ran water-driven mills, however, they were attracted to new business due to sharp rise in internal tourism before the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. ‘The business did not take much effort and is less painstaking,’ a group member said.

The groups also set up a mother entity that looks after the affairs of all homestays. It assists them in advisory matters, including fixation of uniform tariff to be charged to the incoming guests. However, the mother entity is itself not registered. 

The village has a difficult travel through a number of connecting villages due to landslides, pavement degradation, side erosions, and downstream flood causing enormous loss of landmass. The journey to sickles takes 5-6 hours in rainy season from Kahukhola, Kaski. Therefore, a majority of population has shifted to city areas. The president of the mother entity also lives in Pokhara, who hardly pay visits to Sickles. The member’s attraction to city lives have diluted the roles and responsibilities of the governing members of the mother entity.

‘The Khadi – a typical hand knotted carpets are vanishing and the skills that protected the centuries old profession are dying out. The youths are not interested in learning the skills,’ she added rhetorically. Yet, the rich Gurung community does not see homestay business as a creative destruction of the ethnic identity of the village. Unfortunately, only a little attention has been paid to it. The homestay businesses have not worked perfectly fine in the vein of traditional business.