The figures released by Immigration Office, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) reveal that visitor arrivals in the month of March 2010, compared to the same month last year, have increased by 34.6% to 44,431.

The arrivals from South Asian region, except for the arrivals from Sri Lanka have gained overall positive growth of 35.3% with India (35.5%), Bangladesh (53.8%) and, Pakistan (3.2%). Visitor arrivals from India, which is the largest source market for Nepal, has been increasing since the very beginning of 2010. A robust growth of 21% has been observed in the arrivals from the South Asian region during the first three months of 2010, in comparison to the same period last year.

Visitor arrivals from China, one of the fastest growing tourist markets for Nepal, have sustained the remarkable growth of 114%, compared to the figures in March 2009.  Similarly, other Asian countries maintained the upward trend of previous months with Japan ( 6.8%), Malaysia ( 38.4%), South Korea (68.1%). However, arrivals from Thailand and Singapore witnessed negative growths of 45.9% and 5.8% respectively In aggregate, the other Asian segment has registered a growth of 32.9%. Visitor arrivals in the first three months of 2010, as compared to the same period last year, have grown by 38.6% in aggregate.

An overall growth of 42 % has been observed from the European markets with arrivals from major generating markets such as the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands up by 44.9%, 5.4%, 40.8%, 44% and 128.2% respectively. Visitor arrivals from all the European markets in the first three months of 2010, as compared to the same period last year, have grown by 34.1%.

The figures also show increasing trend in the visitor arrivals from the United States of America with a notable growth of 6.5%. Similarly Canada, Australia and New Zealand have also maintained positive trend with 27.2%, 27.4% and 69% of growths respectively.

This is the tenth consecutive month Nepal has witnessed growth in the international tourist arrivals and this confirms the improved prospects for Nepal in the year 2010 with rising business and consumer confidence. In the first three months of 2010 a robust 29.8 % of cumulative growth has been observed in comparison to the same period last year.

A total of 39,221 foreign tourists departed from TIA in March 2010.The number of Nepalese arrivals stood at 51,243 while 68,475 Nepalese departed from TIA in March 2010.