Elephant Festival begins in Nepal’s Chitwan district; incredible activities lined-up

Elephants are ready to enjoy the limelight in Chitwan in the coming days as the 14th season of the Elephant Festival started in Nepal's Chitwan district on Tuesday. Chitwan is famous as Nepal’s 3rd most popular tourism place.
The festival, which will last for five days, has been organised by the Regional Hotel Association of Sauraha in Chitwan National Park. It was inaugurated by Nepal’s PM Sher Bahadur Deuba.

The yearly fest is meant to bring humans more in touch with elephants, promote wildlife protection and conservation as well as encourage tourism in Chitwan.
"We have been organising this festival to enhance human-wildlife relations by engaging them in sports and fun and to promote tourism of Chitwan," Suman Ghimire, festival coordinator, told a news daily.


As per the news reports, the organiser has put together a fest featuring elephant walk, elephant bath, elephant football, beauty contest, elephant picnic and much more.

"Our all games and activities will revolve around elephants," Ghimire added. Three years ago Elephant picnic was included in the schedule to render love, care and dignity to the elephants.

Chitwan National Park is a sanctuary blooming with plenteous faunal, avifaunal and floral creatures. Elephant Safari is a key tourist draw of this place.

In addition to elephant adventures, the Fiesta will have cultural processions, traditional dance performances, musical shows and kiosks serving a range of local delicacies.


The Elephant Festival in Chitwan is visited by several domestic and foreign tourists each year.

Despite being a leading hub for elephant adventures, Chitwan lacks tourist inflow in comparison to other tourist spots of Nepal such as Kathmandu and Pokhara, claim tourism entrepreneurs.

Director of Green Park Chitwan Resort, Keshav Pandey, rues that although 8,00,000 foreign tourists come to Nepal every year, only around 25% of the total count visit Chitwan. He is, however, hopeful that the Elephant fest and other similar carnivals will draw more and more foreign tourists towards wildlife adventure.

The festival will draw to a close on Saturday, December 30