September 4: The number of foreign tourists visiting Nepal has climbed to 326,667 as of August 2022 this year.

According to the data published by Nepal Tourism Board, a total of 41,304 arrived in Nepal in the month of August. The number of tourists visiting Nepal in the review month is comparatively less than the figures of the last five months. However, tourist arrival during this August is more than that of last August, when only 5,917 tourists had visited Nepal due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In August 2020, only 256 tourists had visited Nepal, according to NTB.

Tourist arrival this year is the highest since the onset of coronavirus pandemic. However, tourism entrepreneurs claim that it will still take three more years to reach the pre-pandemic level provided that there is no more obstructions. They estimate that around 1.2 million tourists will likely visit Nepal annually by 2025 if the current situation prevails.

Tourism entrepreneur Yogendra Shakya says that they were not expecting more than 300000 tourists to visit Nepal so soon.

“We were afraid that this year would also be the same as the last few years. However, the arrival of tourists must be considered as a positive sign,” said Shakya.

However, the bookings ahead of the tourist season is not satisfactory, says Shakya. He claimed that the tourists visiting Nepal in groups is not much encouraging and online booking by individual tourists is not likely to improve the situation much.

Shakya estimates that between 500,000 to 700,000 tourists will likely visit Nepal looking at the current situation.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the highest number of tourists visiting Nepal were from China. However, Chinese tourists are yet to arrive in large number this year. The number of tourists visiting Nepal from SAARC nations was the highest in August. A total of 18,852 tourists visited Nepal from SAARC nations including India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in August this year. Among them, 16,147 tourists were from India alone followed by 1751 visitors from Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, a total of 7875 tourists arrived in Nepal from European countries including Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Russia, the UK, and Sweden in the review month.

Among them, most of the tourists were from UK. According to NTB, altogether 2826 tourists visited Nepal from the UK in August.

Similarly, 4091 tourists arrived in Nepal from other Asian countries besides SAARC nations. Tourists from China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Myanmar and Thailand visited Nepal during the review period. A total of 1289 tourists from China visited Nepal  in  August.

The number of tourists visiting Nepal from the USA and Canada stood at 4618 while 449 tourists from the Middle East and Turkey also visited Nepal.