Nepal sees slight decline in tourists, India remains its top source

India continued to be Nepal's top source of tourists in 2019 even though there was a slight decline in the total number of tourists visiting the Himalayan nation. A total of 1.17 million tourists visited Nepal in 2019 via air and land route while in 2018 a total of 1.52 million tourists had visited Nepal, according to the data compiled by the Department of Immigration (DoI),

Like in every year, in 2019 too, Nepal received the highest number of tourists from India. According to the data, a total of 209,611 Indian tourists visited Nepal while 169,543 Chinese visitors arrived in the country in the same year. The US secured the third position with 93,196 visitors arrival from that country while 61,139 tourists arrived from the UK and 55,869 tourists from Sri Lanka.

Among the top five countries to visit Nepal, the number of tourists from the UK and Sri Lanka declined in 2019. As per DoI, 63,086 travellers from the UK and 70,610 tourists from Sri Lanka visited Nepal last year. The number of Thai tourists also declined from 53,250 in 2018 to 41,653 in 2019.

Similarly, the number of tourists visiting Nepal from France, South Korea and Spain also declined to 30,644, 29,679 and 19,057, respectively in 2019 compared to 31,653, 37,142 and 20,210 visitors respectively in 2018. According to Nepal Tourism Board, flight obstruction due to the rehabilitation works at Tribhuvan International Airport and the halt in flight operations by a few international airline companies hit the tourist arrival figure last year.