Over 77,000 tourists visited Nepal in May: NTB

KATHMANDU: Nepal welcomed 404,275 foreign tourists to the country in the first five months of 2023.

According to Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), 77,730 foreign tourists came to Nepal in May alone. Data shows Nepal welcomed 55,074 foreign tourists in January, 73,255 in February, 99,426 in March, and 98,773 in April.

Breaking down the data for May, a total of 36,575 tourists were from India. India. After India, the highest number of tourists came from the United States (8,545), China (4,667), the United Kingdom (2,927), and Australia (2,184).

Bangladesh (2,164), Malaysia (1,321), Germany (1,165), France (1,097), and South Korea (1,039) were other significant contributors during the month in terms of tourist arrivals.

The tourism sector, which experienced a slowdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is gradually gaining momentum. The government issued 478 Everest climbing permits this spring – the highest so far. In 2019, Nepal received approximately 1.2 million tourists, but the numbers dwindled to 230,000 and 151,000 in 2020 and 2021, respectively, due to the impact of the pandemic.

However, there was a significant improvement in tourist arrivals in 2022, with a total of 614,869 tourists visiting Nepal. The trend of increasing tourist arrivals is continuing in 2023.