Darjeeling prepares to celebrate Christmas and New Year

EOI, DARJEELING, DECEMBER 13, 2022: With the Darjeeling hills witnessing substantial inflow of tourists in the ongoing football world cup, the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration has decided to organize a four day winter festival to coincide with the Christmas and New Year.

The event that starts from December 28 till December 31 has been christened the Darjeeling Tourism Festival" being organized by the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration Tourism and Information and Culture departments. 

GTA Tourism Department sabhasad Norden Sherpa said the festival would help attract tourists to the hills. 

"We want to send the message of peace and stability to the tourists. We want more visitors to come to our region," he said 

During the four day festival, the GTA will also organize an event exclusively for tourism stakeholders of the area. 

"We will have a two day event for the stakeholders of the tourism sector, separately. We want the tourism stakeholders to benefit from the rush of tourists to the hills. 

We will have interactions and share ideas and suggestion to attract tourists," the Sabhasad said.

Earlier, the GTA had organized similar events annually with different names, but were forced to suspend it due to the renewed statehood movement in 2017. 

Renowned international trail runner Mira Rai from Nepal has been invited for the festival. Rai will felicitate the outstanding marathon runners from the Darjeeling hills. Among the several features of the festival will be cultural program, performances by western bands, dog show, baby show along with traditional food stalls at Chowrasta, the venue of the event. We want more visitors to come to our region," he said.

Local bands and artists like the Gandharvas band, Frozen band, Prabal Thapa and Parichay band, Carnival band, Miraki band and Puspan Pradhan will be performing. 

The four day festival will also give an opportunity to aspiring ‘vloggers’ to showcase their talent. 

"We have many people especially youths who are into ‘vlogging.’ We will have a competition asking the participant to prepare a video of the festival. 

The best participants will be adjudged winner and will receive a prize," said Sherpa.