What are Pokhara Enduro’s Objectives?

1. Pokhara Enduro race aims to be the first international enduro mountain biking race to be organised in Pokhara, the adventure capital of Nepal. Several hundred thousand global, regional and domestic tourists head to Pokhara each year for adventure activities such as mountain biking, paragliding, trekking, triathlon, white water rafting, and bungee jumping. Pokhara has a captive audience of adventure thrill-seekers, thus becoming a marketable destination because it sells independently. We want to capitalise on this popularity of the destination and further add another attraction to the future visitor of Pokhara. In the future, more people will be drawn to Pokhara via our event and post-event publicity, helping market Pokhara as a sports tourism destination.
2. Another notable objective of this race is to provide Nepalese riders with a ready-made platform to compete with international riders. Nepalese mountain bikers are among the best when biking at high altitudes and in harsh terrain, which has also been proven in the recent South Asian Games (SAG2019), where Nepalese bikers clinched five medals, including 2 Gold. Nepalese elite riders continued their Gold and Silver medal-winning streak at the Monduro Race event held in Himachal Pradesh, India, in 2021. This will be another avenue to showcase our terrain and the athletes in marketing Nepalese sports tourism’s soft and hard assets.
   
3. This event will also bring lots of employment opportunities for the locals while trail building, during the race, and on a long-term basis. It will help bring business opportunities to the locals living in the Arba Hills because of the network of sustainable riding trails we will identify and maintain. This will embrace the locals into the tourism economy of Pokhara, thereby increasing the economic size of Province number 4. Locals could start homestays and lodges to provide services to visiting riders. The youths of this area could be engaged in good-paying jobs, which would stop the unskilled/skilled youths from migrating to other countries.
   
4. Similarly, the race wants to promote sports tourism via the popular biking race format like Enduro which is gaining much popularity worldwide. Organising it in Pokhara will support the Gandaki Provincial Government’s drive to be recognised as a sports tourism destination internationally.
   
5. Overall, Pokhara Enduro will help promote Nepal and uplift the lives of the people of the race area in the long term.
   
6. Nepal is trying to draw more tourists to support the tourism industry to uplift the economy of Nepalese. In this light, other supporting biking events should also be garnered and supported in Nepal so that it culminates in a vibrant and healthy biking industry supporting the overall tourism objective of the government. There has to be a buzz all year round in terms of mountain activities in Nepal so that every marketing activity can be funnelled towards the more excellent vision of Nepal’s tourism target. The Pokhara enduro event will help build the visibility required for Pokhara and provide suitable prelude activities for anything planned post-pandemic. Pokhara is an ideal destination for mountain biking activities throughout the year.