Tourist arrivals to Nepal went up by 14.6 percent in the month of January this year as compared to the same period last year.
The growth in tourist arrivals was supplemented by an increase of 31.8 percent in Indian visitors and 6.9 percent in non-Indians, the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) citing figures released by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation said on Thursday.
Business in the tourism sector came mostly from Asian markets in that month. The Bangladesh market continued to show high growth from among the SAARC countries with 83.4 percent growth, while huge increases were observed from other Asian segments like China and Singapore, which increased substantially by 162.5 percent and 135.4 percent respectively.
Similarly, Japan which has a market share of around 6 percent in the Nepalese tourist industry also grew by 16.4 percent while visitors from South Korea grew by 27.3 percent. The market share of the Asian market was 64 percent during the month where arrivals from Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand declined by 22.6 percent, 31.1 and 26.3 percent respectively.
Similarly, the European segment with its 17 percent overall market share declined by 15.9 percent in January while arrivals from Australia grew by 83.5 percent, Spanish 23.3 percent and Swedish by 2.9 percent, according to the ministry’s records.
However, major European markets showed negative trend with arrivals from UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands sliding by 14.8 percent, 12.6 percent, 24.5 percent and 48.7 respectively. The US market also went down by 11 percent.
The decline in visitors from these markets is mainly attributed to the withdrawal of ceasefire by the Maoists early last month and the travel advisories issued by some European governments.
The confidence of Indian visitors towards Nepal is still reflected in the arrivals in January, the NTB statement said. “The effective connectivity in the Indo-Nepal sector and sustained market promotion by the Nepalese travel trade and airlines along with NTB in India has helped maintain the growth from the market,” it claimed.