Tourism arrival dips as season ends

The increasing trend in arrival of the international visitors to Nepal has started to decline after March this year, the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) said.

The month of May witnessed a slight decline of 5 percent tourist arrival compared to May 2007. However, in last five months it has maintained 8 percent growth as compared to the same period of last year.

In May this year, the Indian market, considered a major market, showed a decline of 14 percent followed by decrease of 2 percent and 1 percent from UK and USA. However, Japan recorded 45 percent increase.

The SAARC segment shows a 10 percent decline compared to last month of which the Indian market is the only one to have tourists coming fewer than before, NTB said. The rest shows a growth of Bangladesh (28 percent), Pakistan (40 percent) and Sri Lanka (90 percent). Out of the remaining Asian segment, Japanese arrivals escalated by 45 percent along with S. Korea (43 percent) and Malaysia (1 percent). The other markets to decline were China (37 percent), Singapore (14 percent), Thailand (46 percent) and Taiwan (48 percent).

European arrivals market share during the month from major generating markets like UK, France and Germany also saw a decrease by 2 percent, 10 percent and 2 percent respectively.

Significant growth during this period was by Spain with 73 percent followed by Austria 12 percent and Belgium 18 percent. The rest of the European markets showed negative record. nepalnews.com ia June 03 08