Hong Kong-based airline Dragon Air was set to resume flights to Nepal's capital Kathmandu Sunday, showing the nation's renewed popularity as a tourist destination, a statement said. The airline belonging to Cathay Pacific in 2001 halted services to Nepal, then racked by a bloody Maoist insurgency, citing commercial reasons.
"We will operate our flights between Kathmandu and Hong Kong four times a week from December 2," Tom Wright, Cathay Pacific general manager for India, Middle East, Africa and Pakistan said in the airline's statement. Dragon Air serves niche markets in Asia in addition to its core mainland China market.
Nepal's tourist trade is reviving after the Maoists ended their bloody insurgency with a peace deal signed with mainstream parties late last year. "As Nepal continues to grow in popularity with travellers from around the world, we have decided this is the right time to resume services to this fascinating country," airline chief executive Kenny Tang said in the statement.
The airline first started flying to Nepal in 1989. The number of tourist arrivals in Nepal by air has shot up by more than 30 percent in the past 10 months to 295,855 compared with the same period a year earlier.
The move by Dragon Air comes after at least six international airlines have launched services to Nepal in the past year, tourism officials say. However, tour organisers say there are not enough airline seats to serve the growing number of people who want to visit Nepal.
Annual foreign tourist arrivals in Nepal - an essential stop on the famed "hippie trail" and a paradise for trekkers - peaked at nearly 500,000 in 1999, but slumped to 283,000 in 2006 when the country's civil war reached a climax.
Nepal is a paradise for backpackers, hippies, trekkers, mountaineers and other adventure tourists. The tourism sector accounts for at least four percent of GDP and provides around 300,000 jobs.
The country has two tourist seasons annually - one in spring, which ends around June with the onset of the monsoon, and another that begins in October, the prime season for trekking amid the country's majestic Himalayan peaks.