The peak tourist season this year has witnessed a robust growth in foreign tourists which coupled with growing number of Nepali business and leisure travelers have left airlines with few unbooked seats.[break]
Travel agencies say there is added pressure on New Delhi, Bangkok and Guagzhou sectors for up to mid-November. October and November are always like this because the period happens to be the peak tourist season. Also, a lot many more Nepalis are flying home to celebrate the festivals and booking their tickets to return to their foreign destinations for work and education. As a result, international air tickets are hard to find.
Executives at NextYatra, which sells tickets for Air China, China Southern and China Eastern, confirm there has been a remarkable growth in passengers from China.
Biswash Bajracharya at NextYatra says flight frequency in this sector has risen by 200 percent in a year and still there is demand for more flights in this sector.
The number of Chinese tourists has dramatically gone up as nearly 30,000 Chinese visited till first nine months of Nepal Tourism Year (NTY), up 61 percent compared to the same period last year.
Till last year, Chinese coming to Nepal were mostly tourists, students and businessmen and their number was in the same order.
“The trend has taken a U-turn with increasing number of businessmen coming to Nepal to participate in trade fairs in India and the number of Nepalis visiting China for business has also gone up significantly,” Bajracharya said.
There are problems in finding tickets for Kathmandu-New Delhi sector in Jet Airways, Spicejet and Kingfisher airlines because of the festive season rush. There is a tight situation for the China sector as well and the increased number of flights for China is not sufficient, says Sushil Baniya at Ace Travel.
He added that Middle-East carriers including Gulf Air, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways are also facing a tight situation as far as availability of seats are concerned. Getting a low frequency flight via Singapore route or a lower economy seat in Silk Air and Singapore Airlines is also tough, he added.
Director of Sales and Marketing at Yeti Travels Bijay Amatya said, "A major reason for the rush is increasing number of tourists," adding that pressure is specially on those sectors from where the number of tourist arrivals is high. Amatya said his travel agency is facing problems in arranging tickets for Jet Airways, Etihad, Oman, Air China, Durk Air, among others.
“The rush continues through November, making it very hard to get economy class tickets without prior booking,” he added.
According to officials at Lalit Mandap Travels and Tours, tickets to and from New Delhi are seeing a lot of pressure.
Although a number of new airlines have started operations and frequency of the flights in Kathmandu-Delhi-Kathmandu sector has also increased, the total number of seats that they are offering is way below the demand for the festive season.
“Delhi is a transit point for destinations for which there is no direct flight from Kathmandu. So, a lot of people coming to Nepal come via Delhi,” Raju Lawaju at Lalit Mandap told Republica. He said his travel agency observed a 30 percent growth in business in international tickets.
Growing demand and increasing exchange rate of dollar against Nepali currency have taken the airfares up. The economy class ticket for Delhi has gone up by Rs 3,000-5,000 depending on the airline and rise in airfare for Guagzhou and Chengdu is up to 50 percent.
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