Tourist arrival drops in May

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, June 4: Tourist arrival in Nepal has decreased in the month of May this year.

According to the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), a total of 86,216 international visitors entered Nepal in the month of May, 2025.

This is 4.4 per cent lower than the tourist arrival during the same month of last fiscal year 2024. A total of 90,211 tourists arrived in Nepal in the month of May 2024.

Notably, tourist arrival figure in the month of May this year represents a 110 per cent recovery compared to pre-pandemic levels in May 2019, signaling Nepal’s strong comeback as a favoured global travel destination, according to the Nepal Tourism Board. 

A total of 78,329 tourists visited Nepal in the month of May 2019. 

The tourist inflows which have been decreasing in Nepal after COVID-19 pandemic has started growing since 2024. 

According to NTB, Nepal welcomed over 1.147 million tourists in 2024, marking a significant recovery and growth of nearly 13.1 per cent compared to the previous year 2023.

A total of 1,014,882 foreign tourists visited Nepal in 2023. A total of 1.19 million foreign tourists had arrived in Nepal in fiscal year 2019/20.

A total of 501,264 tourists arrived in Nepal during the five months since January of the year 2025. 

The highest number of tourists of 121,687 entered in Nepal in the month of March 2025 while a total of 116,490 tourists entered Nepal in the month of April. 

Similarly, a total of 79,991 tourists entered Nepal in the month of January and 96,880 in February this year.

The highest number of tourists arrived in Nepal from India in the month of May this year. A total of 28,160 tourists have come from India while 9,074 tourists from America and 8,824 tourists from China have visited Nepal, according to the NTB.

Similarly, 4,280 tourists from Bangladesh, and 3,473 visitors from the United Kingdom have come to Nepal in the month of May.

The share of India in total tourist arrival in the month of April is 32.7 per cent while the share of USA was 10.5 per cent, China 10.2 per cent, Bangladesh 5 per cent and UK 4 per cent.

Of the total tourist arrival, share of tourists from Asia (SAARC) stood at 40 per cent (34,350 people), Asia (others) at 21 per cent (18,069 people), Europe at 15.5 per cent (13,330 people), Americas at 12.6 per cent (10,842 people), Oceania at 3.5 per cent (2,984 people), Middle East at 1.8 per cent (1,515 people), Africa at 0.4 per cent (337 people) and others at 5.6 per cent (4,789 people) in the review month.