Once again Indian tourists flock to Nepal

By a staff reporter

Nepal has so much to offer to the people of India that no other country can match. Fresh air, outdoor scenery and adventure activities are the feature attractions of Nepal. It is not a big country, but for sheer variety, it’s hard to beat.

Nepal has always been popular with Indians as a recreational, shopping and pilgrimage destination. Nepal has gained ground as the ultimate adventure destination among Indians. While trekking, mountaineering and game watching have long been popular, an entire range of other "fun-filled" possibilities for family, elders and youngsters have emerged in the recent years such as rafting, paragliding, ultralight aircraft, hot air ballooning, mountain flight, pony treks, jet scooter, boating and bungy jumping. There are great diversion opportunities in the nearby hill stations of Kathmandu.

Nepal is the only country where Indians do not require passport and visa to visit and vice-versa. Nepal’s popularity as a tourist destination in India has increased over the years for easy accessibility, pleasant weather, exchange rate that works in their favor. Hindi is widely spoken and Indian currency accepted in Nepal.

Kathmandu Chale : The resumption of IA flights is a good sign for Nepalese tourism.

In order to reemphasize these advantages that Nepal offers to India only, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has launched its biggest-ever Sales and Marketing Campaign in India. This is NTB’s concerted effort to market Nepal as a perfect destination in our neighbouring country. It incorporates multi media campaign both in print and electronic media, sales missions, fam trips, destination promotions through participation in important tour and travel fairs in India.

The campaign has been successful in shifting the focus of the media coverage to destination related topics, tourism products and investment opportunities in Nepal. As a result, Nepal as a fun, safe and value-for-money destination is now more of a reality.

The arrival figure of Indian tourists to Nepal has shown improvement in the month of June as compared to other months in the year 2000. The month has recorded the least decreased rate of only 19% whereas the month of January 2000 showed a decline rate of 54%. This rise is attributed to the resumption of Indian Airlines’ flights from New Delhi and Calcutta, and NTB’s massive promotional campaign in India. With Necon Air’s operation to the holy city of Varanasi and the resumption of Indian Airlines flight from Varanasi from July 1, 2000, the figure is expected to show further increase in the coming months.

This year, the campaign kicked off in mid May with high-level sales mission in four metros of India namely - Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Calcutta. NTB CEO Pradeep Raj Pandey led the Nepalese delegation to these metros from May 23-25, 2000. The press conferences in each city had an enthusiastic reception with a large turn out of the Indian press, including the electronic media, photographers, travel writers and correspondents. The unprecedented coverage by the Indian press and the subsequent overwhelming response from the public has been very encouraging.

As part of the campaign, NTB has already released a 30-second commercial in popular channels like Star Plus, National Geographic and Sony TV. The commercial was shot in major touristic spots of Nepal and uses a very popular tune as its background score.

A series of advertisement based on NTB’s marketing slogan Mt. Everest & More... has already been released in Times of India (New Delhi and Mumbai Edition), Anand Bazaar Patrika (Calcutta) and Deccan Herald (Bangalore). NTB’s ad will also be released in Femina and Filmfare.

NTB had a fruitful meeting with ZEE TV top executives in Mumbai and Delhi. During the meetings, ZEE TV was requested to promote Nepal by running various programmes on Nepal free of cost and also to assess carefully the authenticity of any news before airing it.

As a result of NTB’s initiative, ZEE TV ran fillers of Nepal in May. The filler ran under the heading of Nepal-Destination Paradise. The footage for the filler was taken from NTB’s documentary on Nepal Mt. Everest & More... These fillers were run free of cost at NTB’s special request and NTB appreciates ZEE TV for their kind cooperation.

Organising fam trips for journalists from reputed newspapers and magazines is one of the highlights of the media campaign and provides them with a first hand feel of Nepal -visit different places, taste the food, shake hands with the locals - not only on escorted tours but also on their own. Recently, NTB organized a fam trip of 15 journalists and TV crews (Doordarshan and Sahara TV) from New Delhi. As a result, articles and TV shows on Nepal have appeared in the respective newspapers and TV Channels giving Nepal the much needed publicity.

The press trip from New Delhi lasted from May 15-20, and the journos visited various tourist spots of Kathmandu and Pokhara. A Press Conference was organized by NTB on May 16, at the tourist service center. Visiting Indian journalists, NTB Board Members editors and reporters of leading newspapers, travel trade magazines and members of various travel trade associations were invited.

An eighteen member Indian journalists from Mumbai, Bangalore and Star TV crew were in Kathmandu for an eight-day sojourn. They arrived here on June 26. A guided sightseeing tour of the Heritage Sites of the Kathmandu Valley was conducted. They were also taken on a visit to the scenic city of Pokhara. Boating in Phewa lake, sightseeing tour and sunrise viewing from Sarangkot were organised for them in Pokhara. The members of the fam trip were also taken to the scenic hill station of Nagarkot and for a cable car ride to Manakamana. They also visited casinos and shopping centers of Kathmandu.

Cricket tourney to boost tourism

By a staff reporter

In order to boost up tourism industry of the Kathmandu Valley, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) is organizing an international cricket tournament in the city in August this year, KMC Mayor Keshav Sthapit said.

The team design of the tournament will be unique for Nepal. In this, the world will play against Asia and the KMC has been planning to include cricketers of different nations.

"This cricket tournament may sound over ambitious. But this is one of the promising options for Kathmandu city," said Mayor Sthapit. "If the match is well capitalized, Nepal will certainly enjoy the much needed international media attention. We believe it will help to boost up tourism industry in Kathmandu," he further added.

After successful completion of the first ever international cricket tournament organized at Tribhuvan University’s cricket ground in 1998, many cricketing nations have showed keen interest in Kathmandu for organizing such tournaments. The participating team as well as the foreign cricket personalities termed Kathmandu’s climate as the perfect one to host international matches here.

The Star Sports, a cable TV channel that aired the match then, had very beautifully presented touristic spots within the valley to its viewers around the world during the tournament which lasted for couple of weeks. Many tourism entrepreneurs believe that those clippings showed on the TV had a positive impact to its viewers.

Only in the last years, Kathmandu hosted a friendly cricket match featuring worlds well known cricketers including India’s all rounder Kapil Dev. The newspapers published from India and other cricketing nations gave much needed importance to this tournament. As such, many tourism entrepreneurs believe that if the upcoming tournament is organized well, it will also have a positive contribution towards boosting the tourism industry of the valley in particular and the country as a whole in general.

Fun in the Bun at Soaltee

By a staff reporter

Soaltee Crowne Plaza has put together an uncommon food festival called Fun in the Bun at the Garden Terrace from July 1. This festival will bring forward creative combination of Bun and other food ingredients sizzled with your choice of sauce such as gravy, redwine, black pepper, mushroom, chilli, bearnaise, hollandaise and garlic says a press release of the hotel.

This promotion may have heavy food in the menu but still goes very light with the wallet with Rs 299 net per person from 3 p.m. 6 p.m. with as much as you can eat and as much as you can drink aerated beverage.

Combination of Submarine Bun and Paneer Bhujia or that of sub-marine bun and Tandoori Vegetable Skewer or may be the good old chicken steak in sesame see Bun and various other Bun Food will be on offer.

"This special non diet menu is expected to attract all the people who are fed up with all those advice on food habits and which is why we have invented a brand new nutrients for all the fun in the world with this promotion says Prahlad Kunwar, Head of Food and Beverage at the hotel.

This festival will be on until 31 July 2000.