Over 28,000 tourists arrive in first four days of Feb.

Continuing on the upward beat in tourism, Sri Lanka attracted 28,493 tourists for the first four days of February in 2024 averaging around 7,000 plus arrivals a day. Sri Lanka attracted a total of 107,639 tourists for February 2023.

There was a shift in the top source destination with Russia being number one with 4,279 arrivals accounting to 15% of the market share while India closely followed for the second slot with 4,123 visitors. The United Kingdom was the third best market for Sri Lanka with 2,592 (9%) arrivals while Germany (1,977) and China 1,950 followed.Starting the year with a bang Sri Lanka recorded 208,253 arrivals for January 2024 showing a huge increase of 103.1% over January 2023 (102,545). With the introduction of Cathay Pacific flights back to Colombo after four years and several new airlines announcing additional frequency to Sri Lanka, Chinese arrivals are expected to move up to the second position towards mid this year, an official from Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) said.

Chairman Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Chalaka Gajabahu told Daily News that for the first time in Sri Lanka tourism will not experience an off/lead season from this year.“With the winter traffic dropping from Europe we expect this void to be filled by Asian tourists mainly from India and China. The free visa on arrival offered by Sri Lanka to six Asian countries, India, China, Russia, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand as a pilot project until March 21, 2024 and promotions we did last year will help towards maintaining year round high occupancy year around.”

The year 2023 was probably one of the best years in the Sri Lanka Tourism Calendar by reaching more than 100,000 tourist arrivals each month except in May 2023 which was 83,309.

December 2023 saw the highest number of tourist arrivals in a month at the destination which hit an astounding 210,352 arrivals, making 2023 a recorded year of 1,487,303 arrivals which is a testimony for its potential as a destination for future growth for the sector. With continuous promotional efforts by Sri Lanka Tourism and stakeholders the Tourism sector has seen considerable growth in recent times. This can be taken as an excellent outcome after Sri Lanka Tourism went through despite all the challenges and obstacles during the past few years such as the COVID 19 pandemic, 2019 Easter attacks and the 2022 Economic Crisis. Despite these challenges Sri Lanka Tourism was determined to steer ahead by spreading the positive message all across the world that ‘’Sri Lanka is ready and safe’’“Sri Lanka Tourism is very confident that the set target of 2.3 million tourists in 2024 or even more can be achieved with all stakeholders working towards this objective.” (SS)

( Source : Daily News)