Kathmandu, January 7
Before the Covid-19 crisis hit the country, the government of Nepal was much excited about its ambitious Visit Nepal Year 2020 campaign that had targeted welcoming two million foreign tourists in a year.
However, the pandemic shattered the government’s dream and it had to call off the campaign as early as in March. As the year ended now, Nepal has got frustrating data about tourist arrivals in the country.
The Department of Immigration says 230,085 foreigners came to Nepal for tourism in 2020. This is the lowest for the past 34 years. in 1986, only 223,331 foreign tourists had visited the country.
The recent low figure was in 2015 in the wake of the devastating earthquake. However, that year also, Nepal had welcomed over 538,000 tourists.
The previous year (2019) has recorded the highest number of tourists visiting Nepal so far: 1 million and 197,191.
