3-day ‘Snow Festival’ kicks off in Galyat

ISLAMABAD, Jan 31 (APP):A three-day snow festival has been kicked off in Galyat today, featuring a number of winter sports, games and competitions to promote the area as adventure tourism destination across the globe.

“The event has received an overwhelming response on social media as local and foreign tourists are coming to Galyat in droves, which would eventually help boost businesses in three valleys including Nathia Gali, Donga Gali and Ayubia,” the GDA Spokesman Ahsan Hameed told APP on Friday.

He said it was the first time in the history that the Galyat Development Authority (GDA) had planned a multi-locational festival having a number of games and competitions for the tourists including skiing, sculpture making, graffiti, tug of war, ice football, archery, snow tubing, and V-log and photography competitions.

Besides, setting up stalls, the spokesman said motorbike and jeep rallies had also been arranged in the city on February 1st and 2nd .

To a query, Ahsan said the jeep rally would be started from Kuza Gali and culminated at Nathia Gali.

He said the cultural and food stalls had been installed in various valleys to showcase unique culture and splendid cuisine of the area. Music concerts had also been arranged at various spots to fascinate the visiting tourists.

More such event would be arranged in near future to unlock the area’s tourism potential as per the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, he added.

“The basic concept of snow festival is to lure tourists from across the world for winter sports at Galyat,” he remarked.

Galyat is the one of most visiting tourist sites of Pakistan and located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with an average elevation of 8,000 feet (2,400 m) above the sea level.

According to the GDA, tourist traffic to Galyat has registered a marked increase of some 139 per cent in December, 2019 as compared to the corresponding period, mainly due to improved road infrastructure and inclusive steps taken by the Kyber Pakhtunkhwa government for tourism promotion.

As many as 205, 200 local and foreign tourists have visited different valleys of Galyat during the last month of previous year whereas only 85,600 entered the area in December, 2018.