February 2: A total of 55,074 foreign tourists arrived in Nepal in the month of January 2023.    
As per the data of Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), more than 55,000 foreign tourists entered Nepal via the air route in the first month of 2023.    
NTB Director Maniraj Lamichhane said that arrival of a significant number of tourists even in the off-season was a positive beginning.    
Nepal welcomed 16,436 tourists from India in January. Similarly, 6,561 tourists came from USA, 3,441 from Australia and 2,468 from Bangladesh.    
It may be noted that 16,436 tourists had visited Nepal in January, 2022 and 8,674 in January, 2021. The latest number is the highest since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.    
The number of foreign tourists visiting Nepal had increased in 2022 following a decline in coronavirus cases. According to the NTB, a total of 614,148 tourists visited Nepal in 2022.    
Prior to the onset of Covid-19, a total of 1.197 million foreign tourists had visited Nepal in 2019 but the arrival of foreign tourists in Nepal decreased by 81 per cent due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 when only 230,085 tourists visited the country.    
Similarly, 150,962 foreign tourists had visited Nepal in 2021 which was less by 34.4 per cent as compared to 2020. -- RSS