On one hand the visitor arrivals has seen a steep rise and on the other tourism income has seen a regular drop compared to last year.
Visitor arrivals via air continue to rise by 24.3 per cent to 280,575 between January and July — the seven months of the national campaign Nepal Tourism Year (NTY) 2011 — compared to the same period a year ago. But the per day tourist spending has dropped this year compared to last year.
However, around 700,000 tourists visited Nepal within the last seven months, according to the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) that claimed the likelihood of meeting the target of hosting one million tourists this year under the national campaign.
According to the Immigration office at the Tribhuvan International Airport, visitor arrivals in July increased by 20 per cent to 35,212 compared to last July due to robust South Asian and Chinese arrivals.
"Arrivals from South Asian region gained overall positive growth of 21.7 per cent with India (24.5 per cent), Pakistan (58 per cent), and Sri Lanka (70.8 per cent) registering positive growth," the Board said, adding that the only South Asian market to decline is Bangladesh that has declined by 11.2 per cent.
According to the marketing and promotional strategy of NTY 2011 committee, the international promotion has already been started with programmes like Perfect Couple — a new reality show on Channel V from May 22. "Among variety of segments, shopping, casino, and pilgrimage are key attractions to the Indian tourists," CEO of Nepal Tourism Board Prachanda Man Shrestha said, hoping for increase in number of Indian visitors arrivals with the show.
"Our viewers soon will get to watch another programme 'Dare to date' that promotes destination Nepal,” NTY 2011 committee member Ranjit Acharya, said.
"The committee will soon announce re-tender for India and China for the commercial proposals," Shrestha said, adding, "but with BBC and CNN, the committee will negotiate directly."
During the six months of NTY 2011, NTB highlighted the national campaign in 25 international fairs and five sales missions. The promotion programmes are successful as the visitor arrivals from Asia — except South Asian region — have also recorded a healthy growth of 56.6 per cent. China — another major source market — recorded phenomenal growth of 127.7 per cent, whereas arrivals from Malaysia (18.9 per cent), Singapore (36 per cent), South Korea (23.9 per cent) and Thailand (107.1 per cent) have registered positive growths. However, arrivals from Japan have posted a negative growth of 7.9 per cent compared to last July.
From long-haul markets, Europe registered overall negative growth of 5.6 per cent with major source markets showing mixed performance in terms of visitor arrivals. But arrivals from UK, France, Belgium showed positive growth whereas Germany, the Netherlands, Spain recorded negative growth. On the contrary, arrivals from long haul markets such as the US, Australia and New Zealand registered positive growths of 16.8 per cent, 32 per cent and 107.1 per cent, respectively. But Canada showed decrease in arrival figure by 8.6 per cent.
According to the immigration, a total of 36,788 foreign tourists departed from TIA in July, whereas some 52,198 Nepalis arrivals registered and 68,200 Nepalis departure registered in July.
Tourist income
Months -- 2009-10 -- 2010-11 -- Difference percentage
Mid Dec -- 16.51 -- 13.51 -- (-18.18)
Mid Jan -- 18.82 -- 14.85 -- (-21.10)
Mid Feb -- 20.72 -- 16.44 -- (-20.65)
Mid March -- 22.62 -- 18.62 -- (-17.65)
Mid April -- 24.75 -- 21.08 -- (-14.85)
Mid May -- 26.40 -- 22.91 -- (-13.19)
(Tourist Income in Million Rupees. Source: NRB)
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