Tourist arrivals decline by 2.1 pts

The tourist arrivals declined by 2.1 percent to 62,442 in March compared to the same month last year.

According to the figures released by Immigration Office, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), however, arrivals from the Asia, other than SAARC have registered positive growth of 20.4 percent with China up by 35.7 percent, Japan (+6.9 percent), Malaysia (+122.3 percent), Singapore (3 percent) and Thailand (0.1 percent). SAARC region observed negative growths from all the markets.

Tourist arrivals from European region showed overall positive growth of 1.2 percent with arrivals from major tourist generating markets such as the UK, France and the Netherlands up by 21 percent, 18.6 percent, and 8.3 percent respectively.

But the arrivals from Germany, Switzerland Spain were down by 12.9 percent, 48.8 percent and 30.1 percent respectively compared to the same month last year.

Meanwhile, tourists from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and USA have registered strong growths of 66.6 percent, 26.4 percent, 25.5 percent and 17 percent respectively.

A total of 56,902 foreign tourists departed from TIA in March 2013.

The number of Nepalis arrivals stood at 65,461 while 88627 Nepalis departed from TIA in March 2013