Tourist arrivals see negative growth

This season has seen a decreasing trend in arrival of tourists through air, figures released by Immigration Office, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) say.

According to the figures, visitor arrivals in the month of May 2009, compared to the same month last year, have decreased by 5 percent.

The SAARC segment shows a 12.7 percent decline; Indian market alone showed a hefty decline of 13.6 percent. Similarly, arrivals from Bangladesh and Pakistan have witnessed negative growth of 4.2 percent and 17.9 percent respectively. The other markets to decline are Japan (2.3 percent), Malaysia (11.4 percent) and South Korea (23 percent).

However, Sri Lanka registered a positive growth of 19.7 percent. Chinese arrivals have increased by 36.2 percent along with Thailand (87.8 percent) and Singapore (65.1 percent).

European markets registered overall positive growth by 9.1 percent. Arrivals from the UK and Italy are up 11.1 percent and 24 percent respectively. However, other destinations in Western Europe posted weaker arrivals figures - France, Germany and Spain have suffered a decline by 7.2 percent, 9.4 percent and 14.7 percent respectively.

Arrivals from Australia, Canada and United States of America saw increase by 7.6 percent, 8.5 percent and 4.4 percent respectively. nepalnews.com June 02 09