Foreign tourist arrival in Nepal increases by 10pc

Nepal has seen an encouraging number of foreign tourists as the arrival rate went up by 10 percent in October, as per the data compiled by Nepal Tourism Board.

The country welcomed 143,870 tourists throughout the month in comparison to 130,745 tourists in the corresponding period last year. According to the Department of Immigration, a total of 975,557 visitors arrived Nepal in the first 10 months of 2019.

Among them 123,267 arrived via air and 155,058 via land.

Chinese tourists had the biggest share in the tourist arrival with 10.45 percent share among the total tourists entering the country in a month. Some 15,037 Chinese tourists arrived to Nepal in October in comparison to 13,489 in 2018.

The arrival rate of Chinese tourists for October increased by 11.5 percent. A total of 134,281 Chinese tourists had visited Nepal in the first 10 months whereas the number was 122,986 last year.

During the review month tourist arrival from countries like India, Bangladesh and Israel increased significantly. Indian tourist arrival rate increased by 9.1% and the number reached 12,707 this year. It was 1,757 last year. The number of visitors from Bangladesh and Israel stood at 2,786 and 1,616, respectively. The numbers are 58.6% and 57.8% more than the arrivals last year.

Altogether 21,720 visitors from SAARC countries, 28,789 from Asia and 42,297 from Europe visited Nepal in October. The Himalayan country saw 12,109 arrivals from the United States and 2,624 from Canada.

Deepak Raj Joshi, CEO of Nepal Tourism Board, said the growth of international visitors arrival is possible only because of the synergy on their efforts along with private sector, diplomatic missions, Nepalese diaspora and other stake holders.

Nepal is gearing up to celebrate 2020 as Visit Nepal Year and has been carrying out promotional activities abroad.

Source: Agencies

Dhaka/Mukul