Kathmandu, November 8

The number of tourist arrivals in the country has increased by eight per cent till October this year compared to the previous year.

As per Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), a total of 975,557 tourists visited the country in the first 10 months of the year. During the same period last year, a total of 903,539 tourists had visited Nepal. Among the total arrivals, 820,499 international visitors came by air while 155,058 arrived via land routes.

Tourist arrivals from India in the first 10 months have increased by 4.9 per cent compared to last year and reached 169,952. Similarly, 19,279 tourists from Bangladesh and 57,240 from Sri Lanka visited Nepal. Meanwhile, 134,281 Chinese tourists visited the country till October this year, which is 11.5 per cent more than the arrivals in the same month of 2018. During the same period of 2018, a total of 122,986 Chinese tourists had visited Nepal.

Similarly, 39,608 visitors from Thailand visited Nepal during the review period, while visitors from South Korea and Japan stood at 27,751 and 24,137, respectively. Likewise, European arrivals also surged this year, with 199,003 arrivals till October.

Arrivals from the United Kingdom stood at 50,393, while visitors from Germany and France stood at 31,128 and 25,249, respectively.

Meanwhile, the total number of visitors from the United States till October was 77,798, an increase of five per cent over the figures of last year. Likewise, the number of Australian and Canadian visitors to Nepal till October stood at 30,900 and 14,474, respectively.

Deepak Raj Joshi, CEO of NTB, said that the increasing number of tourist arrivals in the country is the result of cooperation among the private sector, diplomatic missions and other stakeholders.

“Effective implementation of promotional campaigns in cooperation with the private sector and the government is the major reason behind the increasing number of tourists,” he said, adding, “The increasing number of tourist arrivals is a positive sign for the government’s target to bring in two million tourists by 2020.”