Annapurna Conservation Area of Nepal welcomes 80,000 tourists

Annapurna Conservation Area is a very famous tourists trekking destination around the world. It had greeted 79,900 tourists in the last financial year.

Mr. Devendra Thapa, Information officer of Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) said, “The visiting number of visitors has increased from last year by more than 4,000.”

Mr. Thapa said, since the volume of visitor arrivals has coherently grown but the rate of growth has decelerated over the last 3 years, so this is a matter of concern for all of us.

In accordance to ACAP the amount of visitors visiting the region enhanced by 5.3% in 2009/10, while the rate of enhancement in the last financial year was 16% and the year before was 30%.

ACAP’s officer stated that the area had met a sharp increment in arrivals for the last 3 years importantly after the Maoists joined political mainstream and the positive effect of the onset of peace procedure.

“The peace procedure rejuvenated businessman, visitors and the industry alike,” said Mr. Thapa.

However, inconstancy and strike’s decreased peace procedure and it again started to drive away the visitors in the recent years. In 2009/10, the area met a considerable fall in the coming of South Asian visitors.

In accordance to ACAP information, the area obtained just 7,901visitors from the SAARC region, down from 8,735 registered a year earlier. In 2007/8, the amount of South Asian visitors visiting Annapurna area was fine over 16,000. Similarly, the coming of visitors from other countries in 2009/10 summed to 72,065, up from 67,190 registered in 2008/09.

Mr. Thapa said, “As the amount of visitors is ascending each year, we can say the area is implementing still well.”

Earlier the disagreement began in the country; the area was obtaining well around 75,000 visitors each year. Anyway, arrivals in the area decreased to just 36,000 in 2005.

Annapurna Conservation Area, which envelops mountainous districts like Manang and Mustang, has been a famous destination for tourists from Britain, Israel, South Korea, China, Germany, US, France and Japan.

In accordance to conservative evaluation, about 30% of whole tourists visiting the country travel to the Annapurna region.