KATHMANDU: Despite significant drop in inflow of foreign tourists due to Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, length of stay of foreign tourists has increased during the year.
As per the statistics of the government, merely 230,000 foreigners visited Nepal in 2020. However, their length of stay in Nepal has increased by more than 19 percent during the year to 15.1 days. It is the first time in history that the average stay of tourists in Nepal has reached 15 days.
In 2019, the average stay of a tourist in Nepal was 12 days. As per Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), the length of tourists’ stay in Nepal was high in 2020 primarily due to the spread of COvid-19 as tourism activities in Nepal in 2020 was almost shut due to the lockdown.
As flights were suspended and travel was banned, it directly affected stay stranded tourists in Nepal.