Nepal promoted in Philippines Himalayan News Service Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) along with Shiva Travels participated at a two-day long travel festival entitled Viajes de Mayo 2005, organised by Philippines Airlines (PAL) in Manila. Various tourism boards and tour operators from six countries — Guam Visitors Bureau, NTB, Shanghai Municipal Tourism Commission, Tourism Authority of Thailand, Hong Kong Tourism Board and Blue Sky Travel-Saigon were participants at the festival. Moreover, PAL featured its flyer programme—Mabuhay Miles during the event. The event was attended by about 300 travel agents from Philippines, both IATA and non-IATA, from all over the country. The event Viajes de Mayo was aimed to create a forum where participants could brief travel agents and tour operators from Philippines on tourism products. The event has been taking place for the last couple of years to promote and sell various tourism products and existing destinations more effectively, states a press release issued here today. Looking into the potential of Nepal as an attractive destination for Filipinos, PAL invited NTB through its GSA Shiva Travels, Kathmandu to participate in the event. All the participants displayed tourism attractions and cultural uniqueness of their respective countries. Emphasising on the theme of ‘cool’ destination, the Nepal tourism delegation tried to cash in on Filipinos’ interest on snowy mountains using snow-clad mountain cutouts. The diverse tourism products of Nepal were showcased with the use of standees, posters and poll banners depicting Nepal’s nature, culture and adventure tourism. Participating tour operators were excited to see Nepal’s presentation and know that Nepal has really diverse tourism products to offer. They mostly made queries about location, air connectivity to Philippines, visa procedures, tourist transportation system, and specially about Nepal’s cuisine, shopping, Mt Everest, and mountain flights. Considering the possible interest of Filipinos to visit Nepal, Philippine Airlines has floated its Kathmandu Swingaround Package at a very competitive rates. The first ever promotional initiative of NTB in the Philippine market created a noteworthy impression among travel agents and tour operators. Ujjwala Dali, manager, and Nabin Pokharel, officer at NTB and Arjun Sharma of Shiva Travels, PAL-GSA for Nepal, participated in the event. The welcome news shared during the event was that the first ever team of Filipino trekkers is going to try scaling Mt Everest in 2007.