Pokhara, August 26:

All the leading hotels in Pokhara are said to have fully booked for this tourist season. Tourism entrepreneurs said that the peace agreement is the main reason for such an encouraging trend.

“We have stopped reservation for the month of October, November and December. However, the situation is still gloomy for the small hotels,” hotel entrepreneurs said.

“All the 165 rooms in Fulbari Resort and Spa, a five star hotel, have been booked for this season,” Dashrath Pandey, sales and marketing assistant manager of the hotel said adding that the rooms priced between $150 and $600 were reserved by European tourists.

Shangrila Village Resort, another leading hotel in Pokhara, has also booked by Japanese tourists, the hotel informed. Gupta Giri, assistant front office manager at the hotel said, “All 61 rooms were booked for this season; October to April. Peace is the only factor for such an encouraging trend.” The rooms in Shangrila Village Resort cost between $70 and $180.

Gyan Bahadur Thakuri, a front office staff at Fish Tail Lodge said, “Five dozen rooms in the hotel are already reserved for the months October to February.”

Laxmi Bahadur Bhattarai, president of the Regional Hotel Association Pokhara, said that the small hotels have also encouraging reservation though they are not fully booked.

“Small hotels have not received full booking”, he said adding that peace could be a driving force for such an encouraging booking. He owns Pokhara Mountain Resort.

“This tourist season should be very encouraging, if bandh, strike and chakkajam were not organised,” said Basudev Tripathi, president of Visit Pokhara Year 2007 and member of Nepal Tourism Board (NTB).

Tourist office Pokhara said a total of 94,799 tourists visited Pokhara in 2006. Nearly 60 per cent of them came for trekking.

Around 400 hotels in Pokhara have over 8,000 beds, according to the data of regional hotel association Pokhara.