KATHMANDU, May 26: The Chitwan National Park (CNP) has seen footfalls of over Rs 263,000 tourists in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year.
According to the CNP, the aforementioned figure was the highest number of visitors that the national park received in the past one decade. The tourism businesses in the national park went down mainly due to the 2025 earthquake, Indian blockade and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ganesh Prasad Tiwari, information officer of the CNP, said that out of the total number of visitors, 187,217 were Nepalis and 27,874 were from the member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), while the remaining 27,874 individuals were from third countries.
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In the fiscal year 2021/22, a total of 190,000 tourists visited the CNP. In the past one decade, the national park witnessed the minimal footfalls of 87,391 visitors in 2015/16.
Tiwari said there is a massive rise in domestic visitors in recent days. After the decline in the impacts of coronavirus, the number of foreign visitors has also increased significantly.
During the review period, the CNP collected a revenue of Rs 244.94 million. The amount was way higher than the revenue collection worth Rs 114.99 million in the last fiscal year.
Of the amount collected during mid-July 2022 and mid-April 2023 this year, Rs 193.93 million was collected from tourism while the remaining Rs 47.97 from the selling of foreign resources.
Meanwhile, the CNP provided Rs 18.50 million in compensation to the people who suffered from the wild animals of the national park. In the last fiscal year, the CNP distributed Rs 15 million in the compensation amount.
