KATHMANDU, Jan 1: Almost 100,000 foreign tourists have entered Nepal in the month of December alone.
According to the statistics of the Department of Tourism (DoT), 96,568 foreign tourists entered Nepal in the month of December 2023. The arrival of tourists this year has brought some relief to the tourism sector which has been hit by COVID-19.
Over 583,000 tourists visit Nepal within six months
The DoT stated that the tourist arrival this year is revived by 95.76 percent as compared to 2019. Before the pandemic, 101,030 tourists entered Nepal in December 2019.
The largest number of tourists have entered the country from neighboring India in the month of December. In this month, the number of people entering Nepal from India is 32,692.
After India, the country with the second largest number of tourists entering Nepal is China. In the month of December, 7,370 Chinese tourists have entered Nepal from China. After China, there are countries such as the US, Bangladesh, Thailand, UK, Australia, Myanmar, South Korea and Japan.
According to DoT, 7,027 people from the US, 5,206 people from Bangladesh, 4,534 from Thailand, 4,267 from UK, 3,834 from Australia, 2,533 from Myanmar, 2,363 from South Korea and 2,339 tourists from Japan entered Nepal in the month of December.
The government of Nepal had set a target of 1 million tourists in 2023, which was completed on December 27, 2023.