The arrival of Chinese tourists in Nepal has increased by 3% in the month of January, 2020 as compared to the same period last year.

The rise in the number of Chinese tourists entering the country despite the fear of coronavirus outbreak comes as a surprise.

According to the data released by Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), a total of 13,303 Chinese tourists entered the country in January this year as compared to 12,916 in the same period in 2019.

The overall arrival of international tourists, however, has fallen by 2% as compared. Authorities at NTB have attributed the sharp fall in the overall number tourists to the outbreak of coronavirus in China.

The fear of coronavirus has also affected tourist arrival from India and Europe.

India, China, the US, Myanmar and Thailand were the top five markets for Nepal in the review month of January. Nepal received 16,882 and 13,303 visitors from India and China, respectively, while it welcomed 6,386 visitors from the US, 4,447 from Myanmar and 4,010 from Thailand.

According to the data, 39.1% of the total tourists that visited Nepal in January were from Asian countries (except SAARC) and 26.9% were from SAARC countries. Similarly, 13% of the total visitors were from European countries while 9.2% were from the US and 4.1% from Oceania region.