Nepal announced Ghumphir Barsha (Travel Year) in 2016, a year after the devastating earthquake, to revive the country's struggling tourism industry by encouraging domestic travel as foreign tourist arrivals plunged.

The campaign, the first of its kind in Nepal, sparked a surge in domestic travel.

Beyond traditional leisure destinations such as Pokhara and Chitwan, younger Nepalis began travelling in large numbers. Motorcycle trips from Beni to Jomsom increased sharply after the road connection was completed. Large numbers of domestic tourists also flocked to Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha, Rara Lake, Mustang and several destinations around the Kathmandu Valley.

A decade later, domestic tourism has become a significant pillar of Nepal's economy.

Domestic tourism now contributes 2.65 percent to the country's gross domestic product (GDP), according to the first-ever National Domestic Tourism Survey released by the National Statistics Office (NSO), formerly the Central Bureau of Statistics. The survey, covering fiscal year 2024-25, estimates that Nepalis spent Rs459.5 billion on domestic and outbound tourism.

It found that younger generations, particularly Gen Alpha and Gen Z, travel more frequently than older age groups, with travel frequency gradually declining as age increases.

The total expenditure on domestic tourism during the survey period reached approximately Rs395.42 billion, comprising both same-day and overnight trips.

According to the survey, Nepali households spent Rs90.98 billion on same-day domestic trips and Rs304.44 billion on overnight trips, meaning spending on overnight travel was more than three times higher than expenditure on day trips.

The survey also measured spending by Nepalis travelling abroad.

Households spent Rs63.64 billion on outbound tourism, including Rs9.9 billion spent within Nepal before leaving the country.

Of the total outbound expenditure, Rs47.97 billion was spent on overnight foreign trips, while Rs15.67 billion was spent on same-day outbound trips. These day trips largely consisted of visits to neighbouring India, where Nepalis do not require visas.

The survey defines a domestic tourist as a person who normally resides in Nepal and travels outside their usual environment within the country, stays at least one night and returns within one year.

Domestic tourism covers all travel by Nepali residents within Nepal, including the domestic portion of international journeys before leaving or after returning to the country.

Travel purposes include business, leisure and holidays, sightseeing, visiting friends and relatives, social events, pilgrimage, education and training, health treatment, shopping and other personal reasons.

"Domestic tourism has taken a great leap forward," said Hem Raj Regmi, deputy chief statistician and data curator at the National Statistics Office.

"This is the first-ever survey on domestic tourism and forms part of the tourism satellite account, a statistical system that is being developed to measure tourism’s overall contribution to the economy, including both domestic and international travel," Regmi said.

He said the forthcoming satellite account would capture the economic contribution of accommodation, food services, transport, shopping, trekking, mountaineering and other tourism-related activities.

"Foreign tourists’ contribution in Nepal’s economy is yet to be curated. But together, domestic and international travel and tourism roughly contribute 7 percent to Nepal's GDP annually," Regmi said.

"Tourism has now become one of the country's major service-sector industries."

The survey, conducted among 5,328 households with balanced representation from urban and rural areas, estimates there are 6.91 million households nationwide.

Among them, 3.62 million households, or 52.4 percent, were classified as tourist households, meaning more than half of Nepali households made at least one domestic trip during the reference year.

Meanwhile, 3.29 million households, or 47.6 percent, did not undertake any tourism activity during the period.

There were 523 tourist households for every 1,000 households nationwide.

The average household size among tourist households was 3.94 members nationally, 4.02 in rural areas and 3.87 in urban areas.

Shopping accounted for 32.6 percent of all same-day domestic trips, making it the leading purpose, followed by health treatment and visiting friends and relatives, each accounting for 20.1 percent.

For overnight travel, visiting friends and relatives was the most common reason, accounting for 65.6 percent of all trips.

During the survey period, Nepalis made 3.51 million same-day outbound trips and 620,000 overnight outbound trips.

Shopping was the main purpose of same-day outbound travel, accounting for 63.9 percent of trips and mostly involved cross-border shopping, primarily in India.

In contrast, overnight foreign travel was mainly for visiting friends and relatives (40.3 percent), followed by health treatment (19.6 percent) and religious purposes (19.6 percent).

Outbound travel was most concentrated between September and November, accounting for 50.2 percent of same-day trips and 32.7 percent of overnight trips, a trend likely influenced by festivals (Dashain and Tihar) and favourable travel conditions.

The age profile of tourist households shows that the travelling population is concentrated in working-age groups.

Gen Z (13-28 years) accounted for the largest share at 26.6 percent, followed by Gen Alpha and Beta (0-12 years) at 22.6 percent and Generation Y (29-44 years) at 22 percent.

Among the country's 3.62 million overnight tourist households, 33.3 percent made one overnight trip during the year, 32.2 percent made two trips and 34.5 percent made three or more trips.

The survey found the national average duration of overnight domestic trips was 5.33 days, while households made an average of 4.81 overnight trips annually, with considerable provincial variations.

Sudurpaschim province recorded the longest average stay at 8.18 days, while Madhesh province had the shortest average stay at 3.17 days.

Gandaki province recorded the highest travel frequency with an average of 6.26 trips per household, while Sudurpaschim recorded the lowest at 3.32 trips.

The overall average length of a domestic tourism stay was 5.29 days.

Education and training trips had the longest average stay at 9.16 days, while religious travel and shopping trips averaged only 2.04 days.

Business and professional travel was the most frequent purpose, averaging 6.9 trips per household, whereas holidays and leisure trips averaged 3.02 trips.

The survey also confirms that younger generations travel more often.

Gen Alpha and Gen Z recorded the highest average number of overnight trips at 4.2 and 4.14 trips, respectively.

Travel frequency gradually declined with age, with Gen Y averaging 3.87 trips, Gen X 3.59 trips, Baby Boomers (people born 1946-1964) 3.09 trips and the Silent (born 1928-1945) and Greatest Generation (born 1901-1927) only 2.45 trips.

Kathmandu, Chitwan and Kaski emerged as the country's top three destination districts for overnight travel.

Kathmandu ranked first for business, health and education-related travel and accounted for the largest overall share of domestic overnight trips.

Kaski, which houses Pokhara, was the leading destination for holidays and leisure travel.

Health-related trips generated the highest share of expenditure by travel purpose, accounting for 31.78 percent of total spending, while travel for other purposes, including migration intentions and volunteer activities, accounted for only 0.8 percent.

By expenditure category, shopping accounted for the largest share at 26 percent, while adventure activities represented just 0.04 percent of total spending.

Public transport remained the dominant mode of travel, used in 68.7 percent of all domestic trips.

It was particularly common for visits to friends and relatives (76.6 percent), shopping (71.9 percent) and holidays and entertainment (64.3 percent).

Air transport was used more frequently for education and training (30.5 percent) and business travel (19.9 percent), while chartered/reserved vehicles were commonly used for health treatment (28.8 percent) and religious travel (24.6 percent).

Health-related travel also recorded the highest average spending, with households spending Rs23,516 per trip.

Religious travel followed with an average expenditure of Rs13,593 per trip.

For same-day outbound travel, shopping accounted for 70.7 percent of total expenditure.

Madhesh and Lumbini provinces, which border India, recorded particularly high shares of shopping-related spending and the highest number of same-day outbound trips.