THT Online

Kathmandu, January 2The year 2008 ended on an encouraging note. A total of 8,13,561 tourists visited Nepal during 2008 - an increase of 64.74 per cent - in comparision to 2007 when Nepal received 5,26,705 tourists.The highest tourist generating markets are India, UK and US. “The highest number of tourist arrivals in Nepal is from India, with the total number of tourists 91,177. That is 11.2 per cent of the total tourist arrivals in 2008,” said the Immigration Office, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), records. The other countries sending good number of tourist arrivals are UK, US, France, Germany and Japan.The visitors recorded 11,998 from Australia; 11,679 from Bangladesh; 14,076 from China; 19,616 from France; 16,228 from Germany; 19,694 from Japan; 2,328 from Norway; 1,461 from Sri Lanka; 12,115 from Spain; 12,556 from Spain; 26,762 from the USA; 29,694 from the UK; 91,177 from India and 39,201 from unspecified locations.Recent data from TIA reveals that the highest number of tourists, 90,923, arrived in October.However, the growing trend might hit due to the global crisis as it will affect the number of tourist coming from the US and European countries.Meanwhile, according to Nepal Tourism Borad (NTB), the last month of 2008 received 30,062 visitors - an increase by a meagre 0.6 per cent in comparison to December 2007 - by air. The December arrival figures released by the Immigration Office, TIA, reveal that arrivals from the entire South Asian region gained overall positive growth except for arrivals from Sri Lanka. Bangladesh and Pakistan registered a robust growth of 37 per cent and 23.4 per cent, respectively.”India, the largest market for Nepal, witnessed a growth of only 1.9 per cent in December,” it said. As compared to 2007, the total arrivals from South Asian countries except India registered positive growth.European countries such as the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden have also maintained the increasing trend in comparison to the same month last year. Also, the UK, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, France and Denmark registered positive growth in comparison to 2007. Arrivals from the US, Australia and Canada also increased in December in comparison to the same month last year.Similarly, total arrivals in 2008 from the United States of America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand also increased in comparison to 2007. However France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland registered negative growth in the current month.Other Asian countries did not show healthy trend. Malaysia maintained the upward trend with 21.9 per cent of growth. Arrivals from China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, witnessed negative growth in arrival figures by 25.9 per cent, 3.6 per cent, 2.8 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively in December.A total of 33,554 foreign tourists departed from TIA in December while the total number of international visitor departures till December 2008 reached 405,223, representing an increase of 11.24 per cent over 2007.