It was looking like a good summer: Indian tourists had just begun responding to Nepal's "Festival of Life" campaign. The May statistics from the Nepal Tourism Board were beginning to show the graph edging cautiously upwards. Total arrivals had increased by 8.5 percent until May 2001. This means 12,312 more tourists came by air in the first five months of 2001 compared to the same period last year-when Indian Airlines flights remained suspended after the IC 814 hijacking. The increase in Indian tourists was about nine percent over the post-hijacking lows. Indian arrivals in May were almost 13 percent more than that in April.

And then the royal massacre happened, and hotels have been empty since. Indian tourist numbers plummeted from over 500 arrivals on 1 June to barely 50 by 10 June. Hotel occupancy is in the single digits. However, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, most July bookings are intact, and the outbound Tibet traffic is expected to fill hotels as scheduled. By this week, even the casinos were seeing an increase in the trickle of Indian visitors.