Kathmandu, March 14 -- When Nepal launched its Visit Nepal 2020 campaign to double its visitor arrivals to 2 million last year, much of the hope was pinned on increasing the volume of tourists from China and India.

Chinese Ambassador Hou Yanqi posted pictures of herself on social media on New Year's eve 31 December 2019 to promote Nepal among outbound tourists from China. Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) recruited famous actress Xu Qing to be its Goodwill Ambassador to promote Visit Nepal Year in China.

Nearly 200,000 Chinese tourists visited Nepal in 2019 after free visas were announced, and NTB was hoping to at least double that figure in 2020.Tourists from China had already started streaming in over the Chinese new year holiday last year wh...