Gliding in parasail in Nepal

THT ONLINE

KATHMANDU: The Embassy of Nepal in Geneva organized on Saturday, an interaction programme with a team of paraglider pilots who are travelling to different parts of Europe sharing experiences about paragliding in Nepal.

The programme focused on the promotion of adventure tourism in Nepal, including paragliding, and on how the Embassy as well as the Nepalese community abroad can contribute in publicizing Nepal as a potential hub of adventure tourism.

Invited in the programme were, among others, David Arrufat, Master Instructor and Representative of Association of Paragliding Pilots and Instructors (APPI), who made important contributions in popularizing paragliding as a viable enterprise in Nepal, and Sano Babu Sunuwar, APPI Tandem Pilot, who successfully paraglided over the summit of Mt. Everest.

Members of Nepalese community in Geneva and neighboring towns were also present in the programme.

In his welcome remarks, Permanent Representative of Nepal in Geneva, Shanker D. Bairagi, stated that paragliding has lately become an important and exciting component of Nepal’s tourism industry.

The Government of Nepal attaches high priority to the development and promotion of tourism in order to establish this sector as a strong backbone of the national economy, he added.

Highlighting that Nepal is gifted with unique geography ranging from hills to plain and round the year pleasant weather, ambassador Bairagi stressed that paragliding and other adventure sports could be one of the best way to benefit from the gift of Mother Nature that Nepal is blessed with.

Sharing his experiences about paragliding in Nepal, David Arrufat pointed out that publicity is important to promote Nepal as a destination for a most exciting paragliding experiences and this can best be done by sending abroad the Nepalese paragliding pilots as publicity ‘ambassadors’.

A documentary was presented during the programme that featured the paragliding from the top of Mt. Everest by APPI Tandem Pilot, Sano Babu Sunuwar and the Everest Summiteer, Lakpa Sherpa.