Tourist arrivals up by 20 pc in September

Arrival of foreign tourists increased by 20.6% in the month of September this year as compared to the same month last year. According to the Immigration Office, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), a total of 41,331 tourists visited Nepal in September.

The arrivals from South Asian region have shown robust growth of 49.1% with Bangladesh (79.5%), India (40.9%) and Pakistan (43.9%) while arrivals from Sri Lanka have declined by 10.6%. A sustained growth of 22.8% has been observed in the arrivals from the South Asian region during the first nine months of 2010, in comparison to the same period last year.

Asia, excluding the South Asian region, has continued to maintain the upward trend with double digit growth of 15.2% in September 2010. China, emerging as the major tourist generating market for Nepal has recorded the positive growth of 19.7%. Similarly, visitor arrivals from Malaysia (68.5%), South Korea (52.1%), Singapore (3.7% ) and Thailand (8.9%) have also registered positive growths. However arrivals from Japan have declined by 7.7% compared to the same month last year.

Regarding the long-haul markets, Europe registered overall positive growth of 9.4% with arrivals from Germany , Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark up by 33 %, 5.1%, 8.4%, 8.2% and 45.1 % respectively. The markets that could not show positive results in September 2010 were UK ( -5.6%) , Norway (-23.9%) Switzerland (-4.6 %) and Czech Republic ( -32.9% ). However, a sustained growth of 16.9% has been observed in the arrivals from the European region during the first nine months of 2010, in comparison to the same period last year.

The figures show increasing trend in the visitor arrivals from New Zealand with a growth of 38.5% while Australia posted negative growth of 0.2%. Likewise, the United States of America and Canada, both the markets have registered positive growth of 7.4% and 9.6% respectively.

A total of 36,921 foreign tourists departed from TIA in September 2010.The number of Nepali arrivals stood at 55,936 while 58,190 Nepalis departed from TIA in September 2010. source:nepalnews