Tourism earnings top over 5-year high in January 2025

Sri Lanka kicked in to a fine start with the earnings from the tourism trade surpassing US $ 400 million, after more than five years, reflecting the extremely high potential that lies with the industry, which was once limping, due to the repeated crises.

According to the latest data, the tourism trade has generated earnings of US $ 400.7 million for January, out of 252,761 arrivals, which was also the highest for any January.

The January 2025 earnings marked a 10.7 percent increase from what the industry generated from December 2024 and also registered a 17.2 percent jump from the same period in 2023.

The January 2025 earnings from tourism also is the highest since December 2019, as the industry recorded US $ 455.5 million in earnings, when it was recovering faster from the slump suffered from the Easter Sunday attacks that year but before the prolonged down drift took place from the beginning of 2020, due to the pandemic-related border closures and other restrictions.

Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is looking to make history in 2025, in the absence of any exogenous events hampering the current trend, by welcoming a record number of tourists and also to earn a record income. For instance, in 2024, when the full recovery took place after five years of limping amid the repeated crises, the industry generated incomes of US $ 3,168.6 million, up 53.2 percent from 2023. This is from the total arrivals of little under 2.1 million for the year. 

Sri Lanka looks to attract 3.0 million arrivals in 2025, to generate US $ 3.0 billion in total income from the trade, which is going to be the highest since 2018. The repeated setbacks delayed Sri Lanka from achieving this milestone for six long years, which otherwise would have been achievable in 2019.

The collapse of the sector from 2020 through 2022, in fact, had a major role in causing the economic troubles Sri Lanka had to confront from 2021 onwards. Emboldened by the arrivals, Sri Lankan authorities are ramping up their targeted promotional campaigns to reach the new target for the year, in both its source markets as well in new markets, where Sri Lanka could offer a diverse experience to its visitors.

Source:Daily Mirror