Kathmandu, May 28:

A symposium on adventure tourism organised at the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) here today deliberated on the ways and means to promote adventure tourism within and outside Nepal.

The workshop was part of the activities being organised by the tourism board in association with several tourism agencies to celebrate the Sagarmatha Diwas (Mt Everest Day) tomorrow.

The day marks the heroic achievement of Late Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hillary

who scaled the highest peak on May 29, 1953.

Today’s programme entailed a paper presentation on adventure tourism by noted intellectual Dr Gyanendra Ratna Tuladhar. It was followed by comments by Deepak Mahat former president Trekking Agents Association of Nepal (TAAN) and Gyaneshwar Prasad Singh, project coordinator, MAST Nepal and a lively discussion by various stakeholders and members of the media.

The speakers emphasised on developing adventure tourism as a vital economic activity and outlined the need to give it a due share of importance while promoting tourism. Nepal boasts of having the world’s best adventure tourism options based on mountains like bungee jumping, rafting, paragliding and mountain flight among others.

NTB chief Prachanda Man Shrestha, at the end, summed up the discussions like the need to increase resources by raising adventure tourism activities and creating more novelty in the existing ones; focus on service management; attention to risk mitigation and better management for a higher economic impact to attract high spending tourists.