August 3: Around 39,000 tourists visited Mustang district in the last fiscal year.

According to the Jomsom-based office of the Annapurna Area Conservation Project (ACAP), a total of    38,896 tourists visited the district in FY 2021/22.

The state-owned national news agency RSS reported that the tourists visiting the area were from 48 different countries. Among them, most of the tourists arrived from neighbouring India. The number of Indian tourists was an overwhelming 33,457, informed Ashok Subedi, chief of the Jomsom-based ACAP office.

Similarly, 2,743 foreign tourists visited Mustang after crossing the 5,300-meter Thorang-La pass from Manang district.

Likewise, 1, 566 tourists visited Upper Mustang. Tourists need special permit to visit the Upper Mustang that lies to the north of Kagbeni and extends to the Korala border point. According to ACAP, the visitors need to pay USD 500 to enter this semi-restricted area with beautiful landscape for a seven-day period.

Tourists from SAARC countries need to pay a fee of Rs 1,000 to visit the ACAP region which spreads over Lamjung, Kaski, Manang, Mustang and Myagadi districts of Gandaki Province.

Tourists from other countries need to pay a fee of Rs 3,000 each to visit this area.