Nearly one million foreign tourists visited Nepal in the last 10 months of 2024, the latest figures on Tuesday showed.
A total of 960,022 foreigners that arrived in Nepal as at October marked an increase of 15.66 per cent over the same period of last year.
This is according to data released by the Nepal Tourism Board.
In October alone, 124,393 foreign visitors came to Nepal, up 6.04 per cent over October in 2023.
“The rain-induced disasters in the last week of September led many tourists to cancel their visits in October.
“This number will have increased had the situation been better,’’ Mani Raj Lamichhane, director at the tourism board, said.
Hundreds of people were killed in floods and landslides sparked by incessant rainfalls across Nepal in late September.
Tourism is a major foreign currency earner and job creator in Nepal.
The country welcomed 1 million tourists between January and December in 2023 following China’s border reopening and record arrivals from India.
According to the Nepal Tourism Board, the country’s tourism promotional body, the arrival numbers crossed the million mark on Wednesday, the first time in four years.
This is the third instance that Nepal has received over a million tourists.
The rise in tourist arrivals has cheered the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led administration at a time when other economic indicators are poor and the country is witnessing a massive out-migration due to the lack of decent job opportunities at home.
Arrivals crossed the coveted one-million mark for the first time in 2018, with 1.17 million foreign tourists streaming into the country.
In 2019, the number rose slightly, to 1.19 million, following better flight connectivity with several Chinese cities.
Then the Covid pandemic started in early 2020, bringing arrivals to a standstill.
“It’s a moment to cheer. We have crossed a million milestone again,” said Mani Raj Lamichhane, spokesman for the Nepal Tourism Board. “Though we have recovered 85 percent, there is a lot to do.”
Nepal received 230,085 and 150,962 tourists in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
In 2022, the foreign tourist numbers shot up to 614,869.
Travel restrictions and an economic slowdown triggered by the Covid pandemic delivered a massive blow to Nepal’s burgeoning tourism industry, decimating revenues and profits after 2020.
Following the recovery in arrivals, profit levels of most luxury hotels surpassed pre-pandemic figures as the end of social restrictions unleashed pent-up demand for parties and conventions, hoteliers said.
