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Tourist arrival up by 5.8 pc in January

Tourist arrival to Nepal by air grew by 5.8 percent in the month of January as compared to the same month of last year.

January's growth was contributed chiefly by Asian markets followed by growth from major European countries, a press statement issued by the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) today said citing figures released by Immigration Office at the Tribhuvan International Airport.

Although arrivals from SAARC declined by 8.2 percent including India (-4.8 percent), major growth came from Japan (41.6 percent) and South Korea (82.8 percent) in January. Increase in South Korean visitors is clearly a contribution by the operation of Korean Air since November last year while the increase in Japanese market signals growing confidence of travelers towards the destination, NTB said.

However, the Chinese market came down by 40.2 percent along with Malaysia (-29.9 percent), Singapore (-47.3 percent) and Taiwan (-27.4 percent) but Thai tourists increased by 37.8 percent.

The European segment improved by 11.2 percent with increases from key markets like France (13.6 percent), Germany (23.1 percent), Italy (33 percent) and Spain (35.4 percent) while UK arrivals didn't change much (-0.7 percent) while Dutch arrivals grew up (14 percent). Likewise, arrivals from Australia shot up by 118.6 percent while US arrivals gained 33.6 percent over the last January’s figure.

“There is a growing interest of visitors towards Pokhara and Nepal as a safe and peaceful travel destination,” NTB that is organising the Visit Pokhara Year 2007 said, expecting that the campaign would bring about positive changes in visitors’ arrival pattern. nepalnews.com mk Feb 13 07