Kathmandu July 2 : The total 476 thousand foreign tourists visited Nepal in the six months (January to June) of the current fiscal year, 2022/23, according to the Nepal Tourism Board. The total number of visiting tourists in 2019 from January to June was 536,058.

The number was a 97.79 percent surge than that in 2022 during the same period, and 16.93 percent decrease than that in 2019. However, in the following years, the tourism industry was marred by COVID-19 pandemic that broke out towards the end of 2019, with the number of visiting tourists decreasing.

During the same period, the influx of visiting tourists dropped to 220,815 in 2020, 58,058 in 2021, and 240,901 in 2022.