Visitor arrivals in the month of June 2009, compared to the same month last year, have increased by 6% to 23,222, according to the Immigration Office, Tribhuvan International Airport.

In June this year, arrivals from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have witnessed positive growth of 16%, 4%, and 7% respectively. The Indian market, considered as a major market for Nepal, showed a decline of 6%.

In aggregate, the SAARC segment shows a 4% decline compared to the same month last year.

Similarly, Chinese arrivals have increased by 17% along with Thailand (37%), Malaysia (3%), South Korea (55%) and Singapore (8%). The Asian market to decline in this month was Japan (4%).

The most encouraging results came from European markets, having registered an overall positive growth of 25%, the release said. Arrivals from UK have maintained the increasing trend with a growth of 15%. Nepal's major generating markets in West Europe: Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Norway all have posted significant increases of 27%, 30%, 34% and 17% respectively. However, France recorded 2% decrease in the arrivals.

Tourist arrivals from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and United States of America have also registered positive growth of 27%, 5%, 11% and 21% respectively.

Nepal observed a remarkable growth of 15.8% in April 2009 but suffered a trough in May with a decline of 5% in the visitor arrivals to Nepal.

A total of 28,210 foreign tourists departed from TIA in June 2009. The number of Nepali arrivals stood at 40,337 while 45,541 departed from TIA in June 2009. nepalnews.com Jul 02 09