Sri Lanka March tourism revenue plummets 37 pct as ME escalation bites

Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange revenue from tourism in Mrch 2026 plunged 37 percent from a year ago to US$223.7 million, the central bank said, quoting tourism promotion authority data.

This is the first official tourism revenue released by the authorities since the U.S./Israel bombing on Iran started on February 28.

The island nation’s tourism revenue has been lower since August last year compared to arrivals after the relevant authority revised down per-day tourism spending, officials have said.

The monthly revenue showed a fall for the seventh time in the last nine months. It fell in July and August before rising marginally in the next two months.

Tourism revenue, which accounts for nearly 3% of the island nation’s economy, fell in March in line with a 20% decline in arrivals to 184,979 from a year earlier despite the peak tourism season.

Sri Lanka has set ambitious target of 3 million arrival and US$4 million revenue for 2026.

The revenue also fell 15 percent to US$954 million in the first three months of this year, compared to the same period last year.

The island nation witnessed US$3.22 billion in revenue in 2025, a 1.6 percent jump compared to US$3.

17 billion in the previous year, the data showed.

Arrivals picked up 15.1 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year with the number of foreign visitors to Sri Lanka rising to a record 2,362,521 from 2,053,465.

Tourism accounted for nearly 5 percent of Sri Lanka’s economy when the sector was at its peak in 2018. Since then, it has been hit by the violent Easter Sunday suicide attack in 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 followed by an unprecedented economic crisis.

The tourism earnings figure is estimated from a survey conducted by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. The daily spending per tourist has been reduced to US$148 since August last year from US$171 after a fresh survey.