Indians top list of foreign tourists visiting Nepal

As many as 2,60,124 Indian tourists have visited Nepal in the last ten months, taking the number of tourists visiting the neighbouring country to a whopping one million.

As per the data released by the Nepal Tourism Board on Thursday, a total of 10,01,930 tourists arrived Nepal in the period from January to November. Out of them, a total of 2,60,124 Indian tourists visited Nepal via air travel, making them the highest number of international tourists arriving in Nepal.

The number of the Indian tourist arrivals in Nepal this year as compared to last year has increased by a hundred thousand - In 2017, the number of Indian tourists stood at 1,60, 832 followed by Chinese tourists with 1,04, 664 persons arriving in Nepal.

This year too, China stood second on the list, with 1,34,362 tourist arrivals in the mountainous nation. The number of American Tourists, which stood at 73,650 in 2017, surged to 82,870 in 2018. Tourists from the UK increased to 57,555 from 50,652 in 2017, while German tourists visiting Nepal also grew to 34,479 from 28,702 in 2017.

Nepal, which is home to nine out of the top ten highest peaks in the world, relies heavily on tourism as one of its sources for foreign currency.

The increasing number of international tourists to the nation spells well for Nepal which is observing 2020 as the year for tourism. Last year, the travel and tourism sector alone contributed about 7.8 per cent to Nepal's gross domestic product (GDP).