Himalaya Airlines, a Nepal-China joint venture international airline, launches their new service connecting Kathmandu to Guiyang (the capital city of Guizhou Province). As the airlines explores new markets before the onset of VNY 2020, it aims at promoting and capturing the outbound tourism potential of the province into Nepal. Attracting numerous tourists towards the city every year, Guiyang is one of the major tourist cities of China. Himalaya flies every Tuesday from Kathmandu to Guiyang and back; Himalaya is the only airline operating direct flights between the two cities. With the new service, Nepalese will have a convenient, economical and direct connection to explore this new destination in China.

The maiden flight departed from Tribhuwan International Airport (TIA) at 10:25 hours (local time) on November 19, 2019 and touched down Guiyang Longdongbao International Airport (KWE) at 15:58 hours (local time). The return flight departed from KWE at 18:08 hours (local time) and touched down TIA at 19:36 hours (local time) on the same day.

“China is one of our main target markets. We are delightful to spread our wings to Guiyang. The addition of this route is part of our wider commitment to VNY 2020 – an endeavor to attracting more Chinese tourists to the country. We continually study potential routes and view that this destination will be a popular choice with our customers who fly from Kathmandu to Guiyang. We are planning to go to two new destinations: Changsha and Nanchang soon to make a better access to the China Market. The new flight to Guiyang will provide seamless connectivity options for business people as well as tourists from China, offering yet more choices and convenience to our passengers. H9 will be instrumental in bringing more Chinese tourists to Nepal and helping the tourism economy of both countries. We are sure this new service will be a most sought - after connection for Nepalese while visiting China.” said Vijay Shrestha, Vice President – Administration.

China has placed Nepal as a new leisure destination, which is one of the driving reasons for increased Chinese visitors into Nepal over the past few years. The number of Chinese nationals travelling to Nepal has grown steadily over the last several years. In October, 2019 China held the 1st ranking with 13,489 visitors owning the share of 10.45% in the total tourist arrivals. If we look at the overall year of 2019 (Jan t0 Oct), China holds the second largest tourism market for Nepal with 134,281 visitors showing the growth of 9.2% over the same period of 2018. With this KWE-KTM connectivity, H9 thus expects to contribute its own share to tourism economy of Nepal in a big way.