TAAN Pokhara gets new panel

Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal (TAAN) Pokhara Chapter on August 1 unanimously elected a new executive body under the leadership of Som Bahadur Thapa of Trek & Climb.

Hira Bahadur KC of Sisne Rover Trekking, Bhoj Kumar Shrestha of Down in Nepal, Narayan Prasad Sapkota of Ridge Trail, Ram Chandra Sharma of Blue Planet and Dambar Adhikari of Line Up Trekking have been elected as 1^st vice president, 2^nd vice president, secretary, treasurer and joint secretary respectively.

The annual general meeting held at Kailash Mountain Resort elected Pasang G Sherpa of Himalaya Journeys, Dharmendra Kumar Bataju of Hillsway Trekking, Dharma Thapa of Harmony Trek, Hari Bhujel of Peace Eye Trek, Biswho Raj Adhikari of Amrit Trekking and Dikki Adhikari of 3 Sisters Trekking as members in the executive committee.

The new team will perform responsibilities for a period of two years.

Dragon Air doubles flight to Nepal

Hong Kong based Dragon Air announced on August 1 that it would add three more flights in its Hong Kong-Kathmandu route, making its flights on the route to six a week from September 1.

Alasdair Boyd, country manager of the airline, said Dragon Air was increasing its flights to Kathmandu taking into consideration growing number of passengers on the route. He also expressed the hope that increasing number of flights would be helpful in achieving Nepal's target of welcoming one million tourists to the country during the Nepal Tourism Year 2011 campaign.

Cathay Pacific -- the sister airlines of Dragon Air -- will also extend its full cooperation in achieving the targets, Boyd said, addressing a press meet on August 1.

Dragon Air flies with Airbus A 330 on Hong Kong-Kathmandu route. The airline flew in 50,000 tourists the country county last year. The airline flies to 29 destinations in the Asia Pacific with 400 flights a week to mainland China alone.

Arrivals up 26 percent in July

Tourist arrivals to the country via air in the month of July increased by 26.1 percent to 29,338 as compared to the arrival figure recorded in the same period last year.

According to statistics collected by Immigration Office at Tribhuvan International Airport and disseminated by Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), total arrivals from the South Asia region grew by 31.3 percent over the period. Arrivals from Bangladesh and India grew by 88.9 percent and 26.5 percent respectively, NTB said in a statement. Similarly, the number of Pakistani and Sri Lankan tourists also went up by 10.3 and 48.7 percent respectively.

"Except for the soft decline in April, arrivals from India have been showing sustained growth this year," the statement added.

Arrivals from countries from outside the SAARC bloc have also recorded double digit growth of 19.9 percent. China, a key source country for Nepali tourism industry, recorded a phenomenal growth of 104.2 percent, whereas the number of visitors from Japan, Malaysia and Singapore rose by 10.7 percent, 98.9 percent and 24.7 percent respectively. However, arrivals from South Korea and Thailand registered negative growth of 2.1 percent and 45 percent respectively.

From long-haul markets, Europe registered overall positive growth of 24.6 percent in July, with major source markets showing positive trend in terms of visitor arrivals. Similarly arrivals from Canada and US also surged by 24.9 percent and 12.8 percent respectively.

Australia showed marginal growth of arrival by 0.9 percent, while arrivals from New Zealand declined by 31.1 percent.

Tourist arrival via land till June reached 60,877, up by 6.2 percent compared to the figures of same period last year.