Sustained Increase in Visitor Arrivals in August

Kathmandu, 3 Sept.: Visitor arrivals in August , compared to the same month last year, have increased by 24.3% to 34,415, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) Immigration Office, said..

Arrivals from South Asia gained 34.9% with Bangladesh (51.6%), India (35.1%), and Sri Lanka (57%) registering positive growth. Visitor arrivals from Pakistan declined 20.2%. A robust growth of 20% was recorded from South Asia during the first eight months of 2010, in comparison to the same period last year.

Arrivals from other parts of Asia recorded double digit growth of 27.7%. There was growth of 68.3% in visitor arrivals from China which is one of the fastest growing tourist markets for Nepal.
Visitor arrivals from Malaysia (85.7%), and South Korea (28.6%) have registered positive growths. However arrivals from Japan, Singapore and Thailand have registered negative growths of 5.3%, 32.9% and 9.7% respectively.

Regarding the long-haul markets, Europe registered overall positive growth of 18.9% with major source markets showing positive trend in terms of visitor arrivals. Arrivals from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, UK up by 2.6%, 22.3%, 18.1%, 41%, 101.3%, 106.6%, 15%, 71%, and 15.5% respectively. A growth of 18% has been observed in the arrivals from the European region during the first eight months of 2010, in comparison to the same period last year.

The figures also show increasing trend in the visitor arrivals from Australia and New Zealand with a growth of 16.8% and 28.1% respectively. Similarly the United States of America has registered positive growth of 16.8% while Canada posted negative growth of 17.8%.

A total of 40,908 foreign tourists departed from TIA in August 2010.The number of Nepalese arrivals stood at 49,379 while 63,173 Nepalese departed from TIA in August 2010.
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Two police officers arrested

Kathmandu, 3 Sept.: Nepal Police has arrested two assistant inspectors for allegedly taking a bribe from the son of a UML lawmaker, promising to get his recruited as a police inspector, Republica reports.
The reported victim of the bribery case is 25-year-old Nawaraj Nepali, son of Gobinda Nepali, who was elected lawmaker from Nuwakot district under the promotional representation system.
According to Nepal Police headquarters, Surendra Acharya and Surya Bahadur Sunuwar posted at he Police Hospital, has taken Rs 200,000 from Nawaraj at Ratobhale Restaurant, Babarmahal, on July 20. Nawaraj later failed right at the initial written test.
Acharya, who is with the hospital medical staff, has approached Nawaraj during a medical check-up. He had promised to help Nawaraj get through the exams even overlooking the latter’s health problem, officials said.
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MEDIA GOOGLE

“It’s a reality of many Nepali villages. When water flown from a pine they [villages] are extremely happy. Six/seven thousand people gathered to see water flowing from the tap in Gumli.”

(Gajendra Kumar Thakur, Director General Drinking Water and Sewerage Development Division, Naya Patrika, 3 Sept.)
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