Sauraha Food Festival soon

Kathmandu, December 22:

Hotel Association Nepal’s and Restaurant and Bar Association’s Chitwan chapters will jointly

organize the fifth International Elephant Race from December 26 to 28 and the Sauraha

Food Festival 2008 from December 29 to January 1.

According to the organizing committee, the aim behind the festival is to send a message about human life and wildlife and most importantly to inform the international and domestic tourists about Nepal as a tourist destination.

“Tourist arrival during these season is good but with Christmas and New Year at hand, the number of arrivals decreases. Tourists in Nepal go to other destination to celebrate Christmas

and New Year. If special programmes and events are organized during this festival, we can persuade them to stay on here longer,” said Keshav Pandey of the organizing committee.

He added that people in the tourism sector should plan some festivals and events during the months of March, April and May so that tourist arrivals would be steady in all seasons.

Pandey said, “We have 200 elephants of whom 50 will be chosen for the race. Actually, only 20 elephants will be taking part in the race while the remaining 30 will be on standby.”

According to the organizers, last year there was participation of tourists from Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and some more countries. Registration for the race is going on and tourists from different countries are going through the registration process. The International Elephant Race was started in 2005 with the aim of promoting Chitwan as a tourist destination. This year, the organizers expected more than 1 lakh tourists to visit during the festival.