The 15^th edition of the festival made a grand start with nearly around 100 elephants participating in the festival on the first day.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari inaugurated the festival amid the presence of government officials, tourism entrepreneurs, and around 100 visitors.

The festival took an amazing start with 15-minute-long elephant football sport. In her inaugural address, the President highlighted the role of the elephant festival in Nepal tourism, besides their significance in Nepali culture and religion.

Nepali Minister for Culture and Tourism Rabindranath Adhikari also participated in the inaugural event.

“Elephant festival has been included in our annual tourism calendar as the much-celebrated international event. I believe that it will contribute in attracting more number of foreign tourists in the country,” said the Tourism Minister.

Nepal Elephant Festival is known for its mark in joy alongside promoting the meaningful aspect of human-wildlife relation.

The #ChitwanElephantFestival also stands for wildlife protection and conservation, and also speaks the importance of the festival in promoting Nepal tourism.

“We have been organizing this festival annually to enhance human-wildlife relations,” says the festival coordinator Suman Ghimire.

The festival includes wide range of activities including elephant football, elephant bath, elephant walk, elephant picnic, and elephant beauty contest, among others.

The annual elephant festival began a few years ago and Chitwan, known as one of the leading hubs for elephant adventure, has been hosting the festival right from the first edition.

Besides special performances by elephants, the festival also includes cultural procession, musical programs, ethnic dances and stalls of a wide variety of Nepali foods.

A large number of tourists from all over the world come to Nepal to witness this festival, every year. Elephant Polo is the major highlight of the festival.

This year festival will conclude on December 30, 2018.

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The 14^th edition of this annual five-day event features elephant football, elephant bath, elephant walk, elephant picnic and elephant beauty contest, among others. Elephant picnic was added to the show three years ago.

” We have been organizing this festival to enhance human-wildlife relation by engaging them into sports and fun, and to promote Chitwan tourism. All our games and activities will revolve around elephants,” says Festival Coordinator Suman Ghimire Ghimire.

Besides elephant games, the event also showcases ethnic dances, cultural procession and musical programs with stalls covering wide varieties of local foods.

This festival is aimed at boosting Nepal tourism and promoting wild life conservation, and attracts hundreds of domestic and foreign tourists to Chitwan every year.

It is noteworthy that Chitwan National Park is famous for various endangered species like one-horned rhinos, and elephant safari is one of the major attractions of the park.

Despite of its position as a pioneer for elephant games, Chitwan lags proper reputation as that of other domestic tourism destinations like Pokhara and Kathmandu, say Nepali tourism entrepreneurs.

“Around 800,000 foreign tourists visit Nepal annually, but unfortunately Chitwan receives only 25 percent of them. We believe such festivals will attract more foreign tourists towards wildlife adventure,” Keshav Pandey, Director at Green Park Chitwan resort.

The event lasts till December 30, 2017.

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Tourist inflow to Chitwan takes a hit as the landslide that took place last week disrupted the Narayanghat-Mugling highway.

With this, tourists who had planned to tour Chitwan started cancelling their trips for other tourist hubs like Pokhara and Bandipur, thus making Chitwan’s popular tourist destinations, such as Shaura, Meghauli, Patihani and Kashara almost vacant.

This is hitting the business of tourism enterprises in Chitwan who claimed of witnessing a sharp decline in their business. Hotel entrepreneurs of the district are worried at the alarming rate of booking cancellations.

Business Affected Due to Roads Condition

“Our business is seriously affected by the road condition. We asked the tourists to return from Mugling as the road to Chitwan was not safe,” says Shyam Kaji Mahat, operator of Hotel Central Park situated at Shaura.

According to Mahat, around 60 Indian tourists left for Pokhara as an alternative. While his hotel has a capacity of 46 rooms, all of them are vacant at the moment.

“Although, this is not a major season for tourist inflow, we used to have 25 to 50 percent occupancy in previous years,” said Suman Ghimire, President of Hotel Association Nepal (HAN) Chitwan Chapter.

More than 100 hotel owners of Shaura are facing a similar issue and the industry that was employing around 2,000 members is on the verge of collapse.

Meanwhile, travel traders are concerned about the ‘golden triangle tour’ that covers Chitwan, Pokhara and Lumbini, a widely popular circuit among sightseers in Nepal. They are worried that one of the components could be removed from the tour packages because of the disastrous condition of the highway linking the destination.

Potential tourists being reluctant to Chitwan packages at international travel mart is also raising concern over the competitive status of safari destination in Chitwan.

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