News & Updates

Second International Airport in Nepal

Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation awarded a special license to carry detailed feasibility study for the second International Airport in the southern plains of Nepal to Landmark Worldwide Company (LMW), Korea.

The feasibility study will start in April and last 10 months. The project will encompass an area of 80 sq km out of which 40 sq km will be occupied by the airport and a town will be founded in the rest. With the total investment of US $ 600 million in the first phase and US $ 1 billion until the final stage, the project is to be operated under the “build, own, operate, transfer “ (BOOT) model.

The airport will be constructed citing over two to three million passengers by the year 2015 and will have two parallel runways.

ITB - World’s top fair opens

The world’s top tourism fair kicked off in Berlin on 10 March with the hope of better times for the global travel industry following a crisis hit 2009. According to the United Nations figures, international tourist arrivals fell by 4 percent in 2009 and the earnings from tourism dropped by 6 percent as the world economy went into a tailspin.

However, speaking to reporters as the ITB opened, the secretary general of the UN’s World Tourism Organization (WTO), Taleb Rifai, said that the worst was over. At the ITB fair, as described by Rifai as “the mother of all tourism fair”, 11.127 companies from 187 countries have confirmed their participation, a slight rise from the last year.

According to Singapore based Abacus International, 2010 will be a challenging year but also a year of consolidation and stability as corporate travel is likely to grow by 10-15 percent in Asia this year as business activities improve from last year’s sharp fall.  Emerging markets in Central Asia as well as Nepal, Bangladesh and South Korea are seen as key growth areas.