Tourist arivals jump in March

Kathmandu, 2 April: Tourist arrivals in March increased by 34.6% to 44,431 compared to the same month the previous year, tourism officials said Friday.

The arrivals from South Asian region, except for the arrivals from Sri Lanka ,jumped 35.3% with India (35.5%), Bangladesh (53.8%) and, Pakistan (3.2%).

Visitor arrivals from China, one of the fastest growing tourist markets for Nepal, have sustained the remarkable growth of 114%, compared to the figures in March 2009.
Visitor arrivals in the first three months of 2010, as compared to the same period last year, went up 38.6 percent.

An overall growth of 42 % has been observed from the European markets with arrivals from major generating markets such as the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands up by 44.9%, 5.4%, 40.8%, 44% and 128.2% respectively.
The figures also show increasing trend in the visitor arrivals from the United States of America with a notable growth of 6.5%.
This is the tenth consecutive month Nepal has witnessed growth in the international tourist arrivals and this confirms the improved prospects for Nepal in the year 2010 with rising business and consumer confidence. In the first three months of 2010 a robust 29.8 % of cumulative growth has been observed in comparison to the same period last year.
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