729,550 tourists visit Nepal in 2016

Kiran Bhattarai / Kathmandu, Jan 11: A total of 729,550 foreign tourists visited Nepal in 2016. The number of foreign tourists visiting Nepal in 2016 increased by 24 per cent as compared to 2015, according to the Department of Immigration.

Out of 729,550 tourists, 23,452 Chinese tourists who visited Nepal through Rasuwa check point and Indian tourists coming from land route have not been included, according to the Department.

A total of 554,747 tourists had visited Nepal in 2015 while the number of tourists was up by 174,803 in 2016 as compared to 2015. The number of tourists was 790,118 in 2014.

Director General at the Department, Kedar Neupane, said that there was improvement in the number of tourists visiting Nepal in 2016 as it decreased in 2015 due to various reasons including earthquake, different agitation and Indian blockade.

The highest number of tourists visiting Nepal in 2016 was from India, China and Sri Lanka respectively.

A total of 118,249 Indian tourists visited Nepal via air route in 2016 which was the highest number. Similarly, the second highest number of tourists visiting Nepal was from China which stood at 104,005. Of them, 80,553 tourists visited Nepal via air route and 23,452 from Rasuwa check point.

Likewise, 57,521 tourists from Sri Lanka, 53, 645 from US, 46,295 from UK, 26,722 from Thailand, 25,769 from Myanmar, 25,507 from Australia, 25,171 from South Korea, 23,812 from Germany visited Nepal last year.

Neupane said that Nepal will see some one million tourists in 2017 if number of tourists visiting Nepal increases in such ratio.

A statistics of the Department shows that the highest number of tourists visit Nepal during September, October and December. A total of 87,326 visited Nepal on October while 74,406 on December and 72,720 on September. RSS