April 4: Tourist arrival in Nepal has started to improve gradually. Tourists have started visiting the country with the onset of the spring season and the government adopting new quarantine policy.
In March, a total of 14,977 foreign tourists visited Nepal. Most of the visitors were from India, the USA, China, Britain, and Bangladesh.
According to Nepal Tourism Board, more tourists have entered Nepal in March this year than last year. In the corresponding period of last fiscal year, tourist arrival was zero due to coronavirus and lockdown.
During this time, most of the tourists come to Nepal for mountaineering and trekking. With the onset of the spring season, tourist arrival in March has been significant. A total of 1,790 tourists from 16 countries of Europe have come to Nepal. Among them, there are considerable number of tourists from Germany, France, Russia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In total, 1,831 tourists arrived from Canada and the United States. Likewise, 1,570 tourists have visited Nepal from 8 countries of Asia, including China.
According to NTB, 8,880 tourists have come to Nepal from SAARC countries. Of these, 7,658 tourists arrived from India and 568 from Bangladesh. The share of SAARC countries in the number of tourists is 55.95 percent.
The Department of Tourism has issued climbing permits to 100 individuals from nine teams to climb Mt. Everest in the spring season. So far, 173 people from 20 teams have taken permission to climb seven mountain peaks.
According to the department, apart from Everest, more permits have been issued for climbing Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, and Nuptse.

Forty-four people of four different expedition teams have received climbing permits for Annapurna, 12 individuals from two teams for Dhaualagiri, and ten from two groups for climbing Nuptse.