Kathmandu, February 26

The Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has today begun a survey in a bid to find data on average expenditures by a foreign tourist.

The survey aims to find how much foreign tourists spend during their stay in Nepal, said NTB Director Maniraj Lamichhane.

"Two thousand sample respondents will be selected for the survey. Five employees deployed by the board will fill out the questionnaire with details of visiting tourists. They have a timeframe of 40 days for the job," he said.

Students of the Nepal Academy of Tourism and Hotel Management (NATHM) have volunteered as enumerators for the survey.

In 2021 and 2022, a foreign tourist spent an average of $48 on a daily basis, he said. In 2023, their expenditure is expected to rise to between $70 and $75 each.

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, the Nepal Rastra Bank, the National Statistics Office and the NATHM have collaborated on the initiative.

The arrival of foreign tourists has gradually been on the track post COVID-19, it has been said. A total of 55,074 foreign tourists visited Nepal just last month, according to data with the NTB. Similarly, the total 614,148 tourists arrived in Nepal in 2022.

The years 2020 and 2021, when the infectious disease reached its peak, saw a sharp drop in inflow of tourists to stand at 230,085 and 150,962, respectively, from a whopping 1,197,091 visitors in 2019 before the virus outbreak.

The year 2020 had witnessed an 81 per cent decline in tourist inflow.

A version of this article appears in the print on February 27, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.