Nepal tourist arrival up in May
Kathmandu: The upward trend which has been continuing since June 2009 is maintained in the fifth month of the year 2012 showing clearly the rising travel demand towards Nepal.
The figures released by Immigration Office, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) reveal that visitor arrivals in the month of May 2012, compared to the same month last year, have increased by 9.3% to 42,820.
All regions have shown positive growth in May 2012. The arrivals from South Asian region, have gained overall positive growth of 13.9%. India which constitutes the major market of Nepal, has recorded robust growth of 16.1 % to 20,138 visitors compared to May 2011. Visitor arrivals from Sri Lanka have gained positive growth with 6% along with Bangladesh (1.1%) while arrivals from Pakistan declined by 32.5%. India, which is the largest source market for Nepal, has been increasing since the very beginning of 2010. A robust growth of 30% has been observed in the arrivals from the South Asian region during the first five months of 2012, in comparison to the same period last year.
Visitor arrivals from China, one of the fastest growing tourist markets for Nepal, have sustained the growth of 10.2% in comparison to the same period last year. Similarly, other Asian countries maintained the upward trend of previous months with Japan (26.8%), Malaysia ( 31%). However, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand were some of the major markets to register negative growths in April 2012 leading to negative growth of 2.2% in aggregate.
An overall positive growth of 8.3% has been observed from the European markets with arrivals from UK, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Russia and Czech Republic up by 9.2%, 17.9%, 11.2%, 8.5%, 5.1%, 104.1%, 24.8% and 41.2% respectively. However, the arrivals from Switzerland, Italy, Norway and Austria have declined marginally compared to the same month last year.
Tourist arrivals from Australia and USA have increased by 9% and 12.3% respectively while arrivals from New Zealand and Canada have declined compared to the same month last year.In January-May period of 2012, international tourist arrivals to Nepal have risen by 20.5 % to 250,781.
A total of 56,363 foreign tourists departed from TIA in May 2012. The number of Nepalese arrivals stood at 52,591 while 73,359 Nepalese departed from TIA in May 2012.-NTB
