Some 300 thousand tourists visit Gandaki state in year

KASKI, Around 300 thousand foreign tourists visited the Gandaki State in a year.

According to the data of State's ministry of industry, tourism, forest, and environment, in the fiscal year 2075-76 (2018-19), a total of 298,975 tourists from several countries in the world visited Pokhara, Kaski and other adjoining districts.

Prior to this, there had been no data in the record to show how many tourists visit Pokhara, one of the major touristic sites across the country, in a specific time period. It was believed that of total guests arriving Nepal for the touristic purpose, some 40 percent visit Pokhara.

The state government, soon after its formation, started the process of collecting the data to this regard, according to the ministry's information officer Shiva Pariyar. Month-wise disaggregated data showed that in the Nepali month of Kartik (October-November) the town had welcomed the highest number of tourists (38,575) and it was the lowest (12,602) in Asar (June-July).

Most of them were from the neighboring country India as the number of Indian tourists was put at 120,938. They arrived here via the air and surface route. A police post set up at Abukhaireni in Tanahu along the Prithvi Highway and the Galyang Police Check Post in Syangja along with the Siddhartha Highway register data about tourists entering the town via the land route.

However, the data does not include those tourists visiting the Nawalpur, part of the state.