Nepal’s tourism industry is recovering from a six-year slump following the ceasefire and the start of the peace process. According to the preliminary figures released by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), South Asia recorded a 3 percent decline in arrivals in 2009. However, arrivals rebounded strongly for Nepal during the period resulting in full-year gains of 1 percent.

Similarly, the preliminary data of the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation for 2009 shows that arrivals increased by 1.1 percent compared to the previous year.

Last year, tourist arrivals numbered 509,752 including 378,712 by air and 131,040 by land. In 2008, arrivals

The Nepal government on Sunday awarded the contract to do a detailed feasibility study of a second international airport at Nijgadh-Dumarwana of Bara district to Landmark Worldwide Company, Korea.

The feasibility study will start in April and last 10 months. “In the first phase, there will be a detailed feasibility study and design feasibility study,” said Binay B. Rawal, Landmark’s Nepal representative. According to him, for the detailed feasibility study and design feasibility study, the company would invest US$ 3.8 million.

With a total investment of US$ 600 million in the first phase and US$ 1 billion until the final stage, the

The festival of colours Holi, also known as Fagu, is being celebrated in capital Kathmandu and other hilly and mountainous districts across the country with people smearing red vermilion powder, other colours and water at each other, today.

People across the nation are observing Holi, the festival of colours, with jest and vigour on Sunday. From the early moning children are seen on rooftops to soak the passer byes with water-filled pouches, faces of people carry vermilions so smeared to mark the celebration, youths are seen donning face-paints and wheeling to the happening places in the city.

The Fagu festival or Holi

KATHMANDU, Nepal – Tourism Year 2011 (NTY-2011) was formally launched at a special programme on Friday. Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal launched the formal beginning of NTY-2011 by lighting a peace lamp brought from Lumbini at the Army Pavilion in Tundikhel.

In a very jubilant demonstration of solidarity, thousands of people from various sectors assembled at the Army ground in Tundikhel.

Prime Minister Nepal committed on behalf of the government to firmly support the tourism year and urged all political parties to make the campaign successful.

Nepal pledged to mobilise all government mechanisms to develop tourism infrastructure and to ensure rule of law

Canyoning one of the new additions to Nepal’s extreme sports activity list, an amazing full body and mind experience that enables you to explore some of the most forbidden places in the Himalayas of Nepal. On your journey, you will be accompanied by our qualified guides who will train and guide you in a way of such unforgettable and exiting places. In the course of canyoning, you will make a journey though close passages of rock which has been contoured by ages of rushing water from the Himalayan snow melts. You will also traverse though the natural places like dense