Nearly 7 lakh Indian tourists visited Nepal in 2012

Unfazed by political uncertainty in Nepal, nearly 7 lakh Indians visited the country in 2012, constituting more than half the total number of foreign tourists. A total of 694,136 Indians visited Nepal in 2012 via air and land routes, according to the statistics released by country’s tourism authority. According to the Nepal Tourism Statistics 2012 released by the Tourism Ministry, India ranked as one of the leading sources of tourists with 21 per cent of arrivals, followed by China, the US and UK. The figure was based on arrival data of the Tribhuvan International Airport and an overland tourist arrivals survey conducted by the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB). According to the estimate, 1.33 million foreigners visited in 2012 through air and surface routes. The survey was based on the number of vehicles crossing the Nepal-India border through eight land routes, according to NTB officials. The number of Indian visitors coming to Nepal via land routes has gone up by 70 per cent compared to the data for 2010, according to the survey. The survey has assumed that a bus carries 32 passengers while cars and jeeps carry five, and a motorcycle one passenger. The survey has taken into account mainly visitors traveling by bus, jeep, car and motorcycle. source: Times of India