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Targeting the Visit Nepal Year 2020, preparations are being made for beginning a night-time jeep safari in Sauraha, Chitwan. The new addition is aimed at lengthening the stay of the tourists in Sauraha and will begin soon after the second great festival Tihar, said Regional Hotel Association Chitwan Chair Dipak Bhattarai.
The Jeep safari route will begin from Sauraha and reach up to Lothar via the Kumaroj Buffer Community Forest. This is claimed to be the first night jeep safari in the country. The route of the night safari passes in between a community forest and the Chitwan National Park, also including the Rapti river. The distance designed for the night safari is about 30 km and is expected to take around 4 hours, informed Bhattarai. This is expected to help attract both foreign and domestic tourists.
Kumaroj Buffer Community Forest Chair Ganesh Kumar Shrestha said 60 per cent of the income made from the night jeep safari will be used for the protection and conservation of the forest itself. This will be new for those coming to Chitwan for Jungle Safari. Meanwhile, Chief Protection Officer at Chitwan National Park Narayan Rupakheti said that special attention needs to be paid to protection issues while running Jeep Safari and other activities inside the park. He emphasized on the need to use electric vehicles as far as possible to minimize pollution caused by vehicles. Rupakheti said that the park authorities stand ready to support the great campaign of VNY 2020 announced by the government.
Sauraha is the third most preferred tourist destination in the country. Tourists especially come here for visiting Chitwan National Park and for elephant ride and jeep safari. There are 150 hotels and 80 restaurants in Sauraha, with a capacity to hold 7,000 tourists in a day. In 2018, a total of 150,000 domestic and foreign tourists visited Sauraha.
