Tourist arrivals struggle in October

• 0.5% gain in October; Cumulative arrivals up 10.6% to over 1.8 m
• India, China, UK continue as top sourcing markets 
• Asia and Pacific largest source of tourist traffic to SL with 47% of total received

By Charumini de Silva

Trouble for the tourism industry has been reinforced with arrivals in October barely managing a 0.5% growth though year-to-date figures reflect a 10.6% improvement. 

Tourist arrivals in October was 153,123, up 0.5% from a year earlier and enhanced the first 10 months figure to 1.8 million, up by 10.6%.

According to the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), in October, the largest source market for tourists was India, followed by China and the United Kingdom.

Asia and Pacific continued to be the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 47% of the total traffic received in October, while Europe accounted for 43% of the total traffic, America 6%, Middle East 3% and Africa 1%.

India, China, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia were Sri Lanka’s top five international tourist generating markets in the month of October this year.  

India was the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka representing 25% of the total traffic received in October. China and United Kingdom accounted for 12% of the total traffic, while Germany and Australia accounted for 7% and 5%, respectively.

Sri Lanka’s new destination brand, ‘So Sri Lanka’, debuted on 5 November at the opening day of the World Travel Mart (WTM) 2018 in London. 

Attending the event, newly appointed Tourism Development Minister Wasantha Senanayake said that ‘So Sri Lanka’ brand is not only exhilarating, it’s the beginning of a new era. “We envisage that tourism will flourish to be the most significant sector contributing to our economy – that’s the goal we aspire to reach in the next few years,” he added.

According to the Central Bank’s latest External Sector Performance report, cumulative earnings amounted to $ 2,935 million during the first eight months of 2018.

Tourist arrivals rose 3.2% to 2.1 million last year. Tourism revenues rose by a similar percentage to an all-time peak of $ 3.63 billion.