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Tourists visit the Hanumandhoka Durbar Square, a UNESCO heritage site in Kathmandu, Nepal, Dec. 14, 2018. Nepal tourism sector saw an unprecedented achievement in 2018 as the Himalayan country witnessed arrival of foreign tourists by more than 1 million in a year for the first time in history, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) said on Thursday. (Xinhua/Sunil Sharma)

KATHMANDU, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Nepal tourism sector saw an unprecedented achievement in 2018 as the Himalayan country witnessed arrival of foreign tourists by more than 1 million in a year for the first time in history, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) said on Thursday.

According to NTB, the main tourism promotion body of Nepal, foreign tourist arrivals from January to November period in 2018 reached 1,001,930 with cumulative increase of 17 percent over the same period in 2017, according to a press release of the NTB.

The figures do not include the number of overland international visitors to Nepal in October and November this year.

Nepal saw arrival of 940,218 foreign tourists in 2017.

As per the NTB's statement, Deepak Raj Joshi, chief executive officer of NTB remarked that the image of Nepal as one of the most preferred tourist destinations has been reinforced with an extraordinary growth in the visitor arrivals to Nepal.

"This is the moment to commemorate the milestone in the tourism history of Nepal as it also heralds the potential of tourism sector of Nepal which can be further realized through upcoming national tourism campaign of Visit Nepal Tourism Year 2020," Joshi said.

India and China have led in terms of sending more tourists in Nepal. According to NTB, Nepal welcomed a total of 260,124 Indian visitors during the 11 months of 2018 while China sent 134,362 visitors during the same period.

India and China are by far the largest source markets for Nepal's tourism sector. The United States, Britain and Germany came third, fourth and fifth in terms of sending tourists as of November in 2018, according to NTB.