Visitors arriving by air route to Nepal during March 2006 recorded 26.9% growth compared to the same month of last year. 25,553 international visitors comprising of 28% Indian and 72% non-Indian entered…
Visitors arriving by air route to Nepal during March 2006 recorded 26.9% growth compared to the same month of last year. 25,553 international visitors comprising of 28% Indian and 72% non-Indian entered Nepal during the month. Both the market segments increased during the period. This was stated in the provisional figures provided by Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, quoting Immigration Office, TIA.
Arrival of Indian visitors remained encouraging during the month as it escalated by 77.2%. The strong growth from the Indian market marks the increasing consumer confidence for the destination, which had gone down markedly last year. The market has been showing such trend since the end of last year. The other Asian markets have too increased significantly (88.3%) during the month. Arrivals from Japan, Taiwan and Singapore have doubled while persistent growth have been recorded from other Asian countries.
In the European segment, growth came from France (20.2%), Italy (13.4%), Switzerland (9.4%) and Sweden (9.1%) while the other markets showed some decline. For the overall decline of 17.2% from the European countries, UK went down by 21.8%, Germany by 28.7% and Spain by 15%. Other markets like Austria (-1.2%), Belgium (-20.1%), Israel (-29.7%), Denmark (-9.6%) and the Netherlands (-43.2%) declined during the month. On the other hand arrivals from USA and Australia both went up by 30.6% and 59.6% respectively.
Commenting on increasing trend in March, NTB CEO Mr. Tek Bahadur Dangi said It is positive sign that Indian market has recovered almost at par with 2004. The new Nepal tourism brand to be launched in the market later this month shall help to further enhance the trend this season as well as in the off-season time.
He further added, The growth during March is still apparent because we reached low base figure in last March. Indicating that the growth came due to the rising consumer confidence as fewer cancellations were observed during the month, he urged the need to work more cohesively to keep up and enhance the pattern.
