Tourism arrivals decline by 17.45 percent

December 3, 2001
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December 03, 2001
KATHMANDU: International visitor arrivals to Nepal by air till November 2001 has decreased by 17.45% compared to the same period previous year, the Nepal Tourism Board said in its monthly arrival analysis Monday.
The latest figures show a decrease of 43.16 percent for the month of November 200, compared to the same month last year, representing the loss of 18,615 visitors for the month.

November also represents the highest decline in third country arrivals in 2001; a record plunge of 43.40% in the case of third country; Indian visitor arrival has decreased by 42.05% in November 2001.
Japan and the United States are the worst affected markets – down by 62.4 % and 47.9% respectively, a loss of 5,369 visitors from these two markets alone.

The UK, one of the average performers of 2001, has also taken a hit, down 29.1% percent in the month of November compared to November 2000, with Germany also slowing by 24.6 percent.
”As expected, our primary markets have been negatively affected by the global situation,” said Pradeep Raj Pandey, Chief Executive Officer of Nepal Tourism Board.

“These decreases confirm the information that has been coming out of these markets, and lead us to expect that there will be a 15 to 20% percent decrease for overall visitor arrivals by air till the end of 2001.”
”On a more positive note, some markets in Asia are still doing extremely well,” he said.

Although overall visitors were down, visitors from China are continuing to increase – nearly 3,612 Chinese have already visited Nepal in 2001, up by 1.2%.

“This is very positive news in this climate,” said Mr Pandey, “and these markets hold great potential for Nepal”. In a major slowdown of growth, Israel visitors only increased by 1.9 percent till the month of November 2001.

Nepal Tourism Board is coordinating a number of reassurance initiatives to emphasise safety to the risk-averse markets. Various market campaigns are already underway.