A record high number of tourists visited the Annapurna region in 2023. According to the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP), a total of 191,558 foreign tourists visited the world-famous Annapurna Circuit for trekking in the review year. Prior to this, the highest number of tourists (181,000) had visited the Annapurna region in 2019.

"A new record has been established in the arrival of tourists in the Annapurna region in 2023," said the head of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project, Rabin Kadaria, adding, "Recently, there has been an increase in the number of tourists from South Asian countries, while tourists from other countries have decreased."

In 2019, a total of 53,710 tourists from South Asian countries reached Annapurna, while last year 97,554 people from this region visited the area. Tourists from other countries have decreased compared to before, according to the statistics of ACAP. In 2019, 127,290 tourists from countries other than the SAARC region entered the Annapurna region, while last year a total of 94,400 tourists visited the region, Kadaria informed.

According to him, tourists from 173 countries visited the Annapurna region in 2023 out of which 96,187 tourists were from India. In the review year, 8,526 tourists from France, 7,641 from Germany, 7,249 from America, 7,174 from Britain and 6,323 from China entered the Annapurna region. The arrival of tourists took a nosedive with the onset of Covid-19 pandemic. But with the end of the pandemic, tourism in the Annapurna region has returned to normalcy. A total of 16,105 tourists visited the Annapurna region in 2021 during the pandemic. The following year i.e. in 2022, altogether 129,733 tourists reached the area.

ACAP project chief Kadaria said that the number of tourists from Europe and America coming for trekking has decreased as the old foot trails are being displaced by newly-built roads.