Kathmandu, January 30:

The first batch of five ‘friends of NRNs’ will arrive from the UK and France in February, while several enquiries have already started coming in since the launch of ‘Send Home a Friend’ from January 1, this year.

Non-resident Nepalis, who have always expressed their desire to contribute to the development of their motherland have been given an opportunity by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Civil Aviation and Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) for the first time.

Besides sending back greenbacks to their homeland, they can now exhort their foreigner friends to visit Nepal and help in promoting the tourism industry.

The government and NTB jointly launched this programme ‘Send Home a Friend’ from January 1, this year. Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, in his budget speech for the current fiscal year, had outlined the blueprint of the programme.

The basic idea behind the programme is to encourage Nepalis living all over the world to convince their friends abroad to make them at least one trip to the Himalayan country. For this, the NTB has contacted various NRN associations in different countries to act as key players in this venture.

Tourists coming to Nepal through this programme can enjoy benefits like discounted fares on some domestic carriers, special discounts on purchase of handicrafts from the Handicrafts Association of Nepal (HAN) and restaurants and bars. There will be a special counter at the airport to give a warm individual welcome and a detailed travel kit to each of the tourists, informed NTB official Diwakar Rana, who is coordinating the programme. “Getting a discount from the hotels is not feasible as the room tariffs are not fixed. But we are trying to tie up with Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN) to give us some rooms for this programme,” said Rana.

The information to the newly launched programme is available on the special website ‘send home a friend.com developed for the purpose, as well as on ‘welcome nepal.com’.

“Very soon, some 30 more sites will carry the banner for this programme,” he added.