Tourist arrivals up by 14.2 percent in Nepal

KATHMANDU, Dec 2 - Visitors arriving to Nepal by air increased by 14.2 percent in November 2005 compared to the same month of 2004. A total of 27,511 visitors came to Nepal during the month, the Nepal Tourism Board said in a statement quoting the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation on Friday.
The figures released Friday by the government said arrivals from India and the third countries both increased by 30 percent and 9.9 percent respectively.
Arrivals from SAARC countries grew by 34.6 percent with the only decline coming from the Sri-Lankan market. Bangladesh was on a remarkable growth trend last month too showing an increase of 116.3 percent.
Among other Asian markets, the inflow of tourists from China rose by 51 percent, Japan 21.5 percent and South Korea 39.1 percent. However, arrivals from South East Asian markets including Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia showed some decline.
The European market altogether grew by 7.3 percent with a growth of 21.3 percent from the United Kingdom, 7.4 percent from France, 16.6 percent from Spain and 13.5 percent from Italy.
Germany and the Netherlands observed an incremental loss of 1.6 percent and 34.6 percent respectively, the NTB said.
The Australian market declined by 20.7 percent while arrivals from the United States grew by 18.8 percent.
'The increasing trend in arrivals is not only the sign of increasing confidence of the markets towards the destination, but also a challenge to the Nepalese tourism to retain the growth for the coming days," said Tek Bahadur Dangi, chief executive officer of NTB.