Foreign Tourists Increased in Lumbini in 2018

 

The number of foreign tourist visitation in Lumbini, the holy birthplace of Sakyamuni Buddha and World Heritage Site has mounted in 2018 in the comparison to 2017 while domestic tourists have decreased. Lumbini received 1185571 Nepalese, 193635 Indian and 169904 third-country tourists in 2018 totaling 1534110 that make 16.54 % of increment in Third country visitors, 24.57 % increment in Indian tourists and 6.46 % of decrement in domestic visitation in Lumbini resulting 1.19 percent of decrement in total tourist arrival to the previous year. The tourist arrival of 2018 in Lumbini is presented in the following table.                   

Lumbini received highest number of visitors in the month of April in 2017. The tourist visitation was recorded 344696 in the month as a large number of visitors visited Lumbini to attend Chaite Purnima and Buddha Jayanti Festivals. Similarly, in the months of November, December, February, March, October and January visited considerable number of tourists in Lumbini. But a smaller number of tourist visitation was recorded in the months of August, June, May, September and July.                   

Among the Third country visitors; Sri Lanka (59959), Thailand (26677), Myanmar (25333), China (18460), Vietnam (7193), S. Korea (6493), Germany (2270), Cambodia (2072), Malaysia (1878) and France (1849) orderly placed in the top ten position out of 108 countries that visited Lumbini in 2018.  

Political stability, aggressive publicity role of social Medias and other Medias, political stability in other Buddhist countries have also played an important role to mount foreign visitors in Lumbini. However, the number of domestic tourists has declined by 6.46 %.  

The Trust is accelerating up the activities of exploration, excavation, conservation and Lumbini Master Plan implementation with government's aid and its internal income.  Lumbini Development Trust has provisioned following fees.