A kid from Newar community participates in celebrations of Jyapu Day and Yomari Punhi in Kathmandu, Nepal, Dec. 12, 2019. Yomari Punhi is a festival especially celebrated by Newar community in Nepal to mark the end of the rice harvest on full moon day. Photo: Xinhua

Chinese visitors will vie for the largest share in tourist arrivals to Nepal with Indian tourists once the infrastructure across the Himalayas is completed, a veteran Chinese tour operator said on Monday.

The comment came after a tweet by Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi stormed the social media platform like a whirlwind at the turning of the New Year.

Dressed in scarlet, the Chinese ambassador was seen in front of Nepal's iconic tourist sites. 

"True beauty always touches the deep heart," the ambassador wrote on her tweet, interacting with Yogesh Bhattarai, Nepal's Minister of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.

Nepal has designated 2020 as Visit Nepal Year, and eyes to attract two million foreign tourists, which is an ambitious step up from 2018's 1.17 million visits.

The number of Chinese visitors to the Himalayan country increased by 32.7 percent in the past 5 years to a record high of 150,000 in 2018, up from 2013's 113,000.

In October, Chinese tourists held the biggest share of tourist arrivals with a 10.45 percent share among the total tourists entering the country, the Xinhua News Agency reported, citing the local tourism authority.

However, due to easier transportation, India has traditionally held the No.1 share among foreign visitors to Nepal. In 2018, India lead in tourist numbers, followed by China, the US, Sri Lanka and the UK.

Ye Liang, a veteran Chinese tour operator in Nepal with years of experience, told the Global Times on Wednesday that Chinese arrivals by air has already exceeded that of Indians during the last fiscal year. 

However, Indian arrivals, counting those who make overland trips to Nepal and mostly for pilgrimage purposes, still outnumber the Chinese, according to Ye.

"Chinese tourist arrivals can expect a fair chance to vie with Indians when the trans-Himalayan project is completed," Ye said.

China will build a railway connecting the western region of Tibet with Nepal, according to media reports in June, 2019.

In October, Himalaya Airlines, a Nepal-China joint venture company announced it has started direct flights from Kathmandu to Beijing, marking the first-ever capital-to-capital direct connectivity between Nepal and China.

With a unique religious culture and improved connectivity between China and Nepal, the South Asian country is slated to attract more Chinese tourists that could even surpass the number of Indian travelers, analysts said.

"Nepal is home to a variety of landscapes and climate conditions, with a relatively affordable travel expense, plus it has a close geographic proximity to China. It is one of the best options for Chinese who would like to indulge in a different cultural environment," Liu Xiaoxue, an associate research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' National Institute of International Strategy, told the Global Times.

Nepal tourism has been growing in recent years, but it has suffered as a result of a devastating earthquake in 2015.

In 2018, Chinese tourist arrivals reached 150,000, up 46.8 percent from 2017 records.