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Tourist arrival increases by one-third; October alone sees 18 percent rise

The arrival of tourists via air has continued to witness robust growth. Their arrival has increased by one-third in the last nine months compared with the same period previous year.

The Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), quoting the visitors' arrival data released by Immigration Office, Tribhuwan International Airports for the month of October 2007, has said that the month witnessed healthy growth of 18 percent.

This means October witnessed 6617 more visitors compared to the corresponding month of last year.

"China and Sweden have registered a robust growth of 133 percent and 91.7 percent respectively, followed by a significant growth in major tourist generating markets," the NTB release states.

"Overall, the positive growth in visitors' arrival from Denmark (88.6%), Austria (56.9%), Norway (55.4%), Belgium (50.3%), S Korea (37%) and Germany (33.3%) clearly shows the revival of Nepalese tourism from these high yield markets. Other upcoming markets like Bangladesh (51.1%) and Sri Lanka (56.6%) have shown positive growth. In the meantime American markets like Canada (43.2%) and USA (40.3%) have continued to show the positive result despite their travel advisory."

The total arrivals in the last nine months have gone up by 30 % having 295,855 visitors by air in comparison to the same period last year. Each country has recorded very optimistic figures.

"Indian market has made negative growth. Cheap tour package floated by South East Asian and European countries have reportedly lured upward mobile Indians which is one of the reasons for decline in tourist arrivals from India. Since Cosmic Air has already resumed its service to New Delhi and other airlines are expected to increase flight frequency in this sector soon, tourists arrival will definitely increase from India in next few months," the NTB states.

The NTB has also taken note of launch of service of SilkAir from Singapore and Etihad Airways from the United Arab Emirates which it says will give a positive massage to the world that Nepal is a happening destination. "With the operation of these two airlines, it is expected to increase the number of passengers from Singapore, Australia , Japan, New Zealand and Europe." nepalnews.com sd nov 03 07