The Nepal Tourism Board has decided to acknowledge the contribution that Australia has made to the development of adventure tourism with a new program of investment in the Australian market.

Australia is the ninth largest source market of tourists to Nepal - a position out of proportion relative to the population of Australia, and even more surprising given the distance between Australia and Nepal.

The Australian market to Nepal has grown mainly thanks to the promotional efforts of a few adventure tourism companies in Australia and the tremendous positive word-of-mouth recommendations of returned travellers.

The Nepal Tourism Board is facilitating a travel trade salesmission to Australia in late March to improve links with the outbound travel industry in Australia and to highlight new products and attractions on-stream in Nepal.

"The Australian market has yet to realise that there is much more to Nepal as a destination than just mountains and trekking - and that's what we are going to showcase in this salesmission" said Salesmission Co-ordinator, Olivia Jenkins.

Meetings are being held in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and the Nepal Tourism Board is keen to meet with representatives from the Australian tourism industry who have an interest in cultural tourism, special interest tours, conference and incentive tourism, ecotourism and adventure tours.

"What many people in the tourism industry don't realise is that Nepal has more to offer than majestic mountains and tea-house treks".

"Nepal has a major international conference complex with capacity for over 1000 delegates, excellent quality 5 star accommodation including Radisson, Everest Hotel, Soaltee Holiday Inn Crown Plaza and Hyatt. It also has excellent accessibility with daily flights from Australia via Bangkok with Thai Airways.

"Mount Everest has always overshadowed the other attractions of Nepal, but there is so much more - Nepal has the highest concentration of World Heritage sites in the world with 7 cultural sites heritage sites within a 20 km radius of Kathmandu.

"It also has two national parks (Everest and Chitwan) that are World Heritage listed. The natural attractions are made accessible by very sophisticated wildlife lodges and nature camps, while for those interested in cultural attractions there are living 'museum cities' like Bhaktapur to visit where life goes on very much as it has for thousands of years."

If you are interested in attending one of the salesmission meetings please email Olivia Jenkins on ntbaustralia@yahoo.com.au Numbers are limited and attendance is by invitation only.