Tourism in Nepal is on the rise, a relief for those impacted by the fall in tourism after the 2015 earthquake.
2015 saw only about 539,000 tourists – a far cry from the 940,000 that visited Nepal in 2017 according to the Immigration Department. Not only is this number an increase from the subsequent years following the earthquake, but it also exceeds the historical record of 803,092 visitors in 2012.
Visitors from India made up the largest number with 160,832, followed by 104,664 from China, 79,164 from the United States, 51,058 from the United Kingdom, and 45,361 from Sri Lanka.
These figures do not include people crossing by land, which if factored in would cross the million mark according to Raju Prasad Poudel, an Information Officer at the Department of Immigration, who suggests that the number of unregistered Indians crossing the border is very high.
Deepak Joshi, the director of the Nepal Tourism Council says that they estimate the actual number would be closer to 1.05 million if including land visitors.
While this record number of tourists is encouraging, they’ve not yet met their target of reaching a million. We’re looking forward to see what 2018 brings.