Tourist arrivals via air continue to rise

Nepal witnessed a sustained international visitor arrivals via air this year since January.

The visitor arrivals in September — compared to the same month last year — increased by 11 per cent to 45,782, according to the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) immigration office.

An average daily arrivals crossed 1,526 in September from the daily average arrivals of 1,402 visitors in August due to robust growth from South Asia and China.

“There has been a robust growth of 66.6 per cent in tourist arrivals from China in September,” Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) said, adding that the arrivals from Japan, Singapore and Thailand have also increased by 21.5 per cent, 30.3 per cent and 10.1 per cent, respectively.

However, arrivals from some Asian markets like Malaysia (down by 32.8 per cent) and South Korea (down by 29.4 per cent) declined in September, but in aggregate the Asian segment has registered a positive growth of 28.9 per cent.

In the SAARC region, arrivals from India grew by 24.5 per cent, whereas Pakistanese and Sri Lankan arrivals also witnessed positive growth of 23.6 per cent and 75.4 per cent, respectively.

However, the arrivals from Bangladesh decreased by 34.2 per cent compared to the same month last year. In aggregate the South Asian segment has registered positive growth of 8.6 per cent.

An overall positive growth of 7.8 per cent has been observed from the European markets with mixed performance as visitor arrivals from German, France and Spain dropped.

The arrivals from UK, Italy and the Netherlands saw positive growth of 0.5 per cent, 51.4 per cent and 13.4 per cent, whereas arrivals from Germany, France and Spain were down by 3.1 per cent, 9.8 per cent, and six per cent, respectively, according to the Board.

Similarly, tourist arrivals from Australia, Canada and USA also registered growth of 2.8 per cent, 11.7 per cent and 4.8 per cent, respectively but the arrivals from New Zealand declined by 22.2 per cent compared to the same month last year.

A total of 46,396 foreign tourists departed from TIA in September whereas some 73,210 Nepalis arrived and some 61,430 Nepalis departed from the TIA in September, according to the immigration office.