The tourist season has attracted 16.3 percent more visitors in October compared to the same month last year, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) said.

According to NTB, number of visitors via air in October has reached 50,567, which is highest in a month since 2000. With this, the total number of visitors till October 2008 has reached 307,748, representing an increase of 4 percent in comparison to the same period last year.

Arrivals from South Asian nations have shown positive growth of 26.3 percent with Bangladesh and Pakistan registering growth by 73.9 percent and 35.3 percent respectively, except for arrivals from Sri Lanka which have decreased by 5.9 percent. India, the largest tourist generating market for Nepal, maintained a steady growth of 14 percent in October also.

Similarly, arrivals from other Asian countries, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia and China have maintained the upward trend with 150.4 percent, 53.2percent, 24.4 percent, 23.2 percent and 1.6 percent of growth respectively while arrivals from Japan witnessed negative growth by 10.9 percent.

UK, Israel, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, United sates and Canada have also maintained the increasing trend in the arrival figures. However, visitors from Italy and Spain have gone down by 13.2 percent and 7.5 percent respectively. nepalnews.com ia Nov 03 08