November 12: The number of tourists visiting Nepal increased nominally by 8 percent in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year 2019/20.

Altogether 975,557 tourists visited Nepal between January and October this year, according to data provided by Nepal Tourism Board.

During the corresponding period of last fiscal year, 903,539 tourists had visited Nepal.

According to Nepal Tourism Board, the 10 major countries from where tourists arrive in Nepal include India, China, USA, Sri Lanka, UK, Thailand, Germany, Australia, South Korea and France.

Around 169,000 Indian tourists visited Nepal during the review period this year. Likewise, the number of visitors from China was 134,000.

The government has set an ambitious target of welcoming 2 million tourists for the Visit Nepal 2020 campaign.  Stakeholders are keenly watching the number of tourists in the current FY. During last year, around 1,172,000 tourists had arrived in Nepal.

Nepal Tourism Board said that the arrival of tourists from the SAARC region has increased by 4.2 percent. Likewise, the number of tourists from other Asian countries increased by 11.1 percent while the number of visitors from Europe was up by 0.3 percent. Tourists from USA and Oceania increased by 5.4 percent each while those from rest of the world increased by 24 percent.

However, the arrival of tourists from Bangladesh and Pakistan under the SAARC region dropped by 9.6 and 8.7 percent respectively.

Although the number of visitors this year has been lower than expected, officials of the Visit Nepal 2020 secretariat believe that the promotional campaigns this year will have positive impact in the coming year.

Member Secretary of the VNY 2020 Secretariat Rajan Poudel said that although they are running out of time, they are hopeful that the promotional activities undertaken so far will help them meet the target of bringing in 2 million tourists in 2020.