The NATTA EC Delegation led by President Mr. D.B. Limbu participated in the Interactive Seminar Program held in Tansen Municipality Hall (Palpa) under the aegis of NATTA Palpa Chapter on 25th April, 2014. President Limbu and NATTA Executives were accorded warm welcome by the organizers prior to the program attended by the chiefs of almost all government and non-government sectors viz., Local Development Officer, Chief of Tansen Municipality, President of FNCCI – Palpa, Officials from different professional organizations, Hotels and Home Stay and Organic Farming, travel agents, officials from Get Up Palpa etc. Speaking as the Chief Guest President Limbu expressed his very optimistic views regarding the bright future of Palpa as a touristic destination as Palpa teams with all natural beauty, historical monuments and wonderful and pleasant weather. He hoped that with the completion of Gautam Buddha Int'l Airport in Bhairahawa Tansen will begin to go under the pressure Read More
NATTA jointly with other travel trade organizations have decided not to get involved in any national and international programmes organised by the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), accusing NTB officials of engaging in massive irregularities of funds collected from tourists. At a Press Meet on Tuesday, the Joint Tourism Coordination Committee disclosed that NTB’s amended Financial Bylaws have authorised its chief to spend Rs 10 million at a time for tourism promotion inside the country. NTB, which has been assigned to promote Nepal’s tourism in the national and international arenas, has been stumbling along without its head since the then CEO Prachanda Man Shrestha’s tenure expired on October 31, 2011. The private sector has urged the government to immediately implement a report on NTB’s restructuring submitted by a government-led team. The private sector has asked the government to immediately appoint a new NTB CEO through a competitive process.
NATTA convened a meeting on 18th April,Friday to review on the existing problems faced by travel fraternity in regard to the settlement of TDS, VAT, Corporate Income Taxes etc. with IRD. More than a dozen senior travel agencies from NATTA,NATO & SOTTO were present in the meeting. The meeting concluded with a resolution to support IRD in holding an interactive meeting in the near future.
NATTA organized an Interactive Program followed by high tea to all the members on Friday, 11th April, 2014 at NAXAL Banquet. The objective of the meeting was to review the activities of the present NATTA Executive Committee during the last ninety days and to collect the feedback from the members before chalking out the future course of action. President D.B Limbu welcomed all the members giving a short on the activities accomplished. Program continued with the presentation led by General Secretary Ms. Mihika Dhakhwa informing on the NATTA activities till date. The program ended with vote of thanks by 2nd vice president Mr. C.N Pandey. The feedback and reaction of the general members expressed on the occasion have been noted by NATTA Secretariat. Invitations were sent to all members via email and sms.
NATTA Secy. General Mihika Dhakhwa, Treasurer Narayan P. Gurung Koney, Secretary Ramesh Thapa and CEO Dr. Hari Sarmah called on the office of Director General of the Department of Immigration Mr. Sharad Ch. Poudel on 03rd April in the afternoon to follow-up and check if the suggested actions by NATTA were implemented by the department to mitigate the issue of deportee. The NATTA delegates were assured by the DG that the action is being taken by Immigration and now the Immigration will immediately inform NATTA as soon as the deportees are received by immigration office. Similarly, the above NATTA delegation also visited the office of the Executive Director of Foreign Exchange Management Department of Nepal Rastra Bank, Mr. Vishnu Nepal and Director, Mr. Bhisma Raj Dhungana to follow up the actions being taken by Nepal Rastra Bank on the issues that were discussed with NRB Governor D. Yuba Raj Read More
NMA hosted a Breakfast meeting with the Presidents, Secretaries and CEOs of all the associations affiliated to Joint Tourism Coordination Committee (JTCC) on 2nd April at Hotel Shanker. The meeting attended by almost sixteen tourism related associations focused on various agendas including reviewing of the Govt's Tourism Strategy Plan, and Tourists Bus Terminal. The meeting finally concluded with a resolution that all associations will submit the list of their identified problems with suggestive measures to Joint Tourism Coordination Committee. The committee will then sort out the common issues and brings forth those issues in a day-long workshop for discussion. And the recommendations thereby will be strongly put up to the concerned ministries of the government for implementation in three phases: short-tern, mid-term and long term. All this is expected to take place before the next Breakfast Meeting of the JTCC members. Currently, President of TAAN Mr. Ramesh Dhamala is Read More
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE NE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} NATTA Executive Board invited the Country Managers of all the International Airlines and NAC Commercial Director including Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) operating in Nepal for a meeting on 31st March '14 at Hotel Annapurna. The main purpose of the meeting was to let the international aviation sector know about the planning of NATTA to claim certain percentage of Tourism Service Fee (NQ Tax) operating in Nepal. Collecting the above fees virtually stands as one of the primary liability of the agent when they issue the air-tickets. In case they overlook the matter, they are penalized by the system. So, the agents too, NATTA believes, must have their Read More
NATTA PR & Liaison Committee, after compiling the information regarding the current Tourism Industry Problems from NATTA members, has forwarded the same along with suggestive measures to eliminate the problems to Ministry of Culture, Tourism & Civil Aviation. Those NATTA identified problems and the suggested measures are expected to be published in the National Tourism Strategy Plan in the near future.
The 2nd Vice President of NATTA, Mr. C.N Pandey honored the MATTA President and the Officials with the NATTA Pin and Scarf (KHADA) during the occasion of the MATTA Fair, held at Malaysia. Mr. C.N Pandey also apprised MATTA Officials of the Invitation of NATTA President, Mr. D.B Limbu to MATTA President to visit Nepal. The fair was held from 14th to 16th of March 2014 in Malaysia. The above meeting was held on 15th March 2014 on the premises of the MATTA Secretariat. MATTA was represented by the MATTA President, Mr Haji Hamjah Ranmat, CEO-Mr Phua Tai Neng, MATTA Fair Chairman, Ms Judy Cheah, the forthcoming President. As per the previous MOU signed by NATTA & MATTA in 2004 in Kualalumpur, this meeting has decided to conduct a Sales Mission in Malaysia coinciding with the September MATTA Fair and in Nepal, in due course. The MATTA President has Read More
A NATTA delegation led by President Mr. DB Limbu met Mr. Sharad Chandra Poudel, Director General of the Department of Immigration (GON) and apprised him of the problem of Deportee faced by the ticketing agents. The delegation suggested ways to the Immigration Chief to take certain actions to minimize the problem. NATTA has been requested to send the details of the problem and the suggested measures to overcome the same in black and white.
On 13th March 2014, NATTA had a meeting with Mr. Gurjit Gill, Regional Training Business Development Manager from IATA Training & Development Institute during his visit to Nepal. Mr. Gill briefed about IATA and the importance of training to stay updated with the fast changing aviation & travel/tourism industry. It was decided that BSP Essentials for Travel Agents, an IATA certificate course to be introduced for travel agents by Zenith Training Institute, the only IATA Authorized Training Centre in Nepal. In order to bring down the cost of the course and at the same time, give value for money to those doing the course, IATA ATC will conduct offline classes with online examination.
PATA Nepal Chapter organized a talk program on Nepal-Russia Tourism Exchange Program in the afternoon on Wednesday, the 12th March at NTB auditorium. The chief guest Russian Ambassador for Nepal HE Dr. Sergey Vasilievich Velichkin was the key-note speaker in the program. He said that Russia is always ready to support Nepal Tourism and will continue promoting Nepal amongst Russian people. Present on the occasion were leaders from various Nepalese travel related associations including President and Treasurer of NATTA.
Nepal Tourism Board had convened a meeting of Nepalese Tour Operators including officials from NATTA on 12th March to discuss on the module of promoting Nepal in China in the forthcoming days. All tour operators expressed their positive opinion and urged NTB to host the proposed promotional campaigns to harness the potentiality of the increasing Chinese outbound. They also suggested NTB to subsidize the cost of participation in the upcoming travel fairs in China, viz., WTF (May 9-11, 2014), Beijing Int'l Tourism Expo (BITE – June 27-29, 2014), Int'l Travel Expo (ITE- Hong Kong, June 12-15, 2014. NTB has requested NATTA to produce a proposal to give continuation to and conduct China Sales Mission – 2014 as soon as possible. President Mr. D.B Limbu and CEO Prof Dr. Hari Sarmah spoke on the need of having China Sales Mission and the course of action NTB should follow to accomplish Read More
Mr. Chitra Bahadur Gurung, Coordinator, NATTA PR & Liaison Committee represented NATTA at a high-level meeting on Trade Mainstreaming on March 12 at Hotel Del Annapurna. The meeting was summoned by the Ministry of Commerce & Supply, Government of Nepal. The meeting, chaired by Secretary of MOCS Mr. Madhav Prasad Regmi, had the participation of government officials and private sector equally. Dr. Ratnakar Adhikary, Executive Director of Enhanced Integrated Framework, Executive Secretariat at WTO, Geneva was the special guest and key speaker. Ms. Jacqueline Groth, Counselor, Head of Development Cooperation, German Embassy, Kathmandu made a presentation on major efforts and initiatives undertaken by development partners for trade mainstreaming in Nepal besides shedding light on the role of donor Facilitator, major constraints and future course of action.
A joint meeting was held with all three GDS – Galileo, Amadeus & Abacus as well as with Air India on 12th March 2014. The agenda of the meeting was regarding the ADMs received by our members from Air India due to pricing errors on GDS. For the past few days, NATTA was coordinating with Air India as well as with IATA Delhi & Singapore to manually dispute the ADMs received from Air India. The joint meeting with the GDS and Air India turned out very fruitful and a positive outcome is highly expected. BSP Nepal has accepted the manual dispute of the ADMs submitted by the members within 30 days of the ADM issue date. Similarly, Air India is investigating further on this matter for which the ADMs are raised. With a timely and continuous follow up with Air India and BSP/IATA, NATTA is optimistic that the ADM Read More
A delegation of the NATTA led by its president DB Limbu met with the newly appointed Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Bhim Prasad Acharyaon Tuesday, 4th March 2014 and submitted a 32- point memorandum related to resolving problems faced by the country's tourism sector. The memorandum includes construction of a terminal for tourist buses, expediting the development of a second international airport, allocating a separate budget for tourism promotion from the tourism service fee and other demands. On the occasion, Acharya assured the delegation that the government was committed to amending the existing Labour Act, prioritizing tourism as a national industry, coordinating with foreign diplomatic missions to promote Nepal's tourism and improving the existing management of the Nepal Tourism Board.
A joint Breakfast meeting of the leaders of eight tourism related associations including NATTA was held on Monday, 3rd March'14 at Hotel Shankar in the morning under the aegis of Nepal Association of Rafting Agents (NARA). Hosting of Joint Breakfast Meeting by different associations to reflect on the topical issues in tourism industry is a regular phenomenon and the last one was hosted by NATTA. The Meeting held on Monday focused on forming Tourism Joint Coordination Committee, RIMS and River policy, Tourist Bus Terminal and other topical issues. The Joint coordination Committee formulated under the convenorship of Mr. Ramesh Dhamala, President of TAAN, included all the presidents and General Secretaries different associations. CEO's and ED's were also included in the committee to do the needful to follow up and give continuation to the efforts of the Joint Coordination Committee. NARA President Mr. Chandra Bahadur Dahal while welcoming the participants Read More
NATTA President Mr. DB Limbu, Secretary General Ms. Mihika Dhakhwa, Treasurer Mr. Narayan P. Gurung Koney and CEO Prof Dr Hari Sarmah met Mr. Iqbal Mulla, President of Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) at the Board Room of Hotel Soaltee on Tuesday, the 25th February 2014 and hold discussions on various aspects of mutual co-operation and understanding including the issues of aviation sector and agents problems with IATA BSP link etc. Mr. Iqbal Mulla assured NATTA delegates that TAAI would always be ready to co-operate NATTA in its efforts to reach the greater numbers of Indian Tour operators.
A team from NATTA Executive Board joined the inauguration session of Nepal Economic Summit – 2014 being held at Hotel Soaltee Crowne Plaza in the afternoon on Monday, the 24th February
A thirteen member NATTA delegation led by President Mr. DB Limbu called on the Governor of Nepal Central Bank (Nepal Rastra Bank) Dr. Yuba Raj Khatiwada on Monday, the 24th February 2014 and apprised him of the current problems being faced by ticketing agents in regard to the Bank Guarantee for Foreign Exchange License, the clearance of dollar cheques, Bank commission on exchange of dollar (smaller denominations), high rate of commission on payment by Int'l Credit Cards and setting up of NRB Authorized Exchange Counters etc. Governor Khatiwada has assured the delegates that he would immediately look into the issues raised by NATTA and take the decision at his earliest possible.
