Arrivals of foreign tourists up by 116 percent

KATHMANDU, MARCH 6 : With a gradual mitigation in the global pandemic of Covid-19, the number of internation travellers visiting the country has witnessed an upsurge.

According to the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB),  such travellers numbering 19,766  came to Nepal in the last month of February this year,. This figure represnets an impressive rise of 116.1 percent compared to the corresponding period last year when only 9,146 tourists visisted Nepal.  

Of the total tourists visiting last month, Indians accounted for the highest share at 5,998 followed by Amercians at 3,195.Similarly, 2,217 international tourists belonged to the United Kingdom, 1,052 to Australia, 888 to Bangladesh, 642 to Germany, 529 to France, and 419 to Canada.

At the same time, 205 tourists came to the country from China . The number is significant low given the fact that the nothern neighnour has long remained one of the largest source market of tourists for Nepal. generating markets for Nepal.

The arrivals of foreign visitors stood at 16,975 tourists in January in 2022 while such arrivals in the corresponding months of 2019 and 2020 had been calculated at 102,423 and 98,190 respectively.  

With the rapid transmission of Covid-19 pandemic from March, 2020, the Nepal tourism industry had started to see a downward trend. Even though the industry was going up slightly after sometime, it again suffered from the lockdowns and subsequent travel restrictions (triggered from the second wave of the pandemic).

Nevertheless, the industry has been getting back on track since September-October 2021.