September 15 , 2005

A total of 18,879 tourists visited Nepal by air in the month of April 2005. The figure is a decrease of 38 per cent as compared to the number of the corresponding month of last year.

According to the figures made available by the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), the arrivals of Indian tourists decreased by 33 per cent, while the third country arrival was down by 40 per cent as compared to the figures of the same period last year.

However, visitors' arrival in the second half of the month improved tremendously as the first half was down by more than 50 per cent. In comparison with the figures of the first quarter of 2003, the arrivals in the same period of 2005 remained almost equal. The encouraging growth of the first half of 2004 led to the high base figure for comparison for 2005, thus the decline appears to be very high over the past few months.

Tourism entrepreneurs are optimistic that the arrival trends will start soaring up with the lifting of a state of emergency on April 29, 2005. This may convey a positive message