Tourist arrivals down by 7.4 pc in September

The number of tourists coming to Nepal by air in September this year went down by 7.4 percent as compared to the same period last year.

Citing information released by the Immigration Office at Tribhuvan International Airport under the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) said the number of visitors by air in September came down to 25,484, marking 7.4 percent decline in comparison to the same month last year.

The decline was observed in bother market segments - Indian (-17.4 percent) and non-Indian (-2.6 percent), according to the NTB.

In terms of various originating markets, the number of visitors from SAARC and other Asian countries went down during the month as arrivals from Bangladesh plummeted by 54.5 percent while Chinese arrivals went down by 13.8 percent. Except South Korea, which went up by 48.1 percent, rest of the Asian markets including Japan (-0.6 percent), Malaysia (-11.5 percent), Singapore (-44.3 percent), Taiwan (-53 percent) and Thailand (45.6 percent) went down.

Arrivals from the European countries showed marginal loss of 2.8 percent while the major contributors like French, German and Spanish markets remained positive with gains of 4.3 percent, 2.2 percent and 19.5 percent respectively. The other major contributor from Europe, United Kingdom, however declined by 14.5 percent along with Italy (-9.9 percent) and the Netherlands (-5.5 percent).

Arrivals from Australia on the other hand went up by 38.9 percent while the US market continued to show progress with 22.6 percent rise.

“September 2006 marked a mixed performance in terms of arrivals to Nepal. Interestingly the long-haul markets have gained substantially like US, Australia and Spain while the neighbouring regional markets have registered negative growth,” a statement issued by the NTB said, adding, “The mark up in long-haul segment is a clear indication of returning consumer confidence towards the destination. This is certainly contributed by the improvement of security and safety image of the country as well as absence of negative stories about Nepal.”

Despite the apparent decline in visitors a number of hotels and airlines reported high occupancy rate and tourism attractions within Nepal have observed an influx of tourist after a long spell, the NTB said. nepalnews.com mk Oct 08 06