Tourist arrivals in Mustang have fallen sharply, with the number of visitors dropping by 41.52 percent in the first three months of the current fiscal year compared with the same period last year, according to the District Police Office, Mustang. The district recorded 69,403 tourists between Shrawan and Ashoj this year, down from 118,685 during Shrawan to Ashoj last year, a shortfall of 49,282 travellers that officials attribute to natural disasters and road blockades. The figures, compiled by the District Police Office, which maintains records of tourist movement in the district, were reported by Khabarhub, RatoPati and Nagarik News.
A steep year-on-year decline
The data shows that Mustang welcomed fewer than 70,000 visitors during the opening quarter of the fiscal year, against nearly 119,000 in the corresponding stretch twelve months earlier. Expressed as a monthly average, arrivals fell from roughly 39,562 last year to about 23,134 this year, underscoring the scale of the slowdown in one of Nepal's best-known tourist districts. In other words, this year's arrivals stand at about 58.5 percent of last year's level for the same period.
Police Inspector Ishwar Mahat, information officer at the District Police Office, Mustang, said the month-wise breakdown of this year's arrivals is as follows:
- Shrawan: 30,534 tourists
- Bhadra: 20,268 tourists
- Ashoj: 18,601 tourists
The three monthly figures add up to 69,403, matching the total for the period. They also reveal a steadily weakening trend within the season itself. Arrivals fell by 10,266 from Shrawan to Bhadra, a decline of about 33.6 percent, and slipped by a further 1,667 from Bhadra to Ashoj, roughly 8.2 percent. By Ashoj, monthly arrivals had dropped to around 61 percent of the level recorded in Shrawan, the first month of the fiscal year.
Disasters and blockades disrupt travel
According to the District Police Office, the decline has been driven by natural disasters and road blockades, both of which made journeys to the district difficult during the review period. The months from Shrawan to Ashoj, roughly mid-July to mid-November, span the tail of Nepal's monsoon season, a time when floods and landslides frequently damage highways and disrupt road transport across the country's hill and mountain districts.
The citation of road blockades as a contributing factor also points to the importance of uninterrupted road access for travel to Mustang. When key routes are blocked or damaged, journeys become longer, costlier and less predictable, and the police data suggests that this combination of disaster-related disruption and blocked roads coincided with a steep fall in visitor numbers month after month.
Inspector Mahat, as the spokesperson for the police office, presented the figures along with these reasons, making the District Police Office the primary source for both the arrival statistics and the explanation behind the drop.
What the numbers mean for the district
Mustang is among Nepal's most popular destinations, attracting visitors with its trans-Himalayan landscapes and trekking routes, and tourism is closely tied to the district's local economy. A drop of nearly 42 percent in arrivals over a single quarter represents a gap of almost fifty thousand travellers compared with the previous year, a shortfall that reduces footfall for the hotels, restaurants and transport services that depend on visitor spending.
The comparison with last year also highlights how sharply conditions have changed. Last year's total of 118,685 arrivals between Shrawan and Ashoj demonstrated the district's capacity to draw large numbers of visitors during the same months. This year, even the strongest single month, Shrawan with 30,534 arrivals, was well below the roughly 39,562 monthly average recorded over the same period last year.
The figures released by the District Police Office cover only the first three months of the current fiscal year, from Shrawan through Ashoj. Within that window, the data captures a consistent downward trend: each successive month brought fewer visitors than the one before, and the cumulative total fell far short of the previous year's mark. With natural disasters and road blockades cited by the police office as the reasons behind the decline, the arrival statistics offer a clear measure of how heavily those disruptions weighed on tourist movement in the district during the period.
