Sports boost tourist arrivals in July

Tuesday, 2 August 2022 03:45 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

July arrivals up 44% month-on-month to 47,293
YTD arrivals at 458,670, but down 78% compared to the same period pre-COVID 2018
Industry fears surge in Monkeypox and COVID globally could adversely impact arrivals

Tourist arrivals in July increased by 44% to 47,293 from 32,856 in June despite the ongoing economic crisis, whilst surpassing 450,000 arrivals during the first seven months.

The increase in arrivals was largely influenced by sports tourism where Sri Lanka is enjoying an ongoing test tournament with Pakistan, while it successfully held a tournament with Australia last month.

Arrivals in the first seven months amounted to 458,670 (as against 2,429 in COVID-hit July of 2021), a welcome development for the triple-hit tourism industry, but performance is still down by 78% compared to the same period in pre-COVID 2018.

The latest data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) showed the daily average arrivals have slightly picked up to 1,526 in July, compared to 1,095 in June. The highest daily average arrivals were in March with over 3,600 and it dropped to 2,099 by the end of April following the economic crisis and political turmoil and in May it further dropped to 974.

In July, the largest source markets were the UK with 9,257 tourists or 20% of the total arrivals, followed by India with 6,031 tourists (13%) and Germany with 3,666 (8%).

India remains strong as the top tourist source market for Sri Lanka YTD with cumulative number of arrivals at 74,792 followed by UK 58,879, Russia with 48,321, Germany 37,108, France 25,451, Australia 16,514, Canada 16,475, Ukraine 13,840, US 13,154 and Poland 13,073.

Given the surge in Monkeypox disease globally and the sudden spike in COVID cases locally, the industry feared that it could adversely impact the tourist arrival numbers in addition to the severe fuel crisis and worsening economic crisis.

As per the latest Central Bank data released on external sector data showed that tourism earnings in the first half were $ 740 million, as against $ 44 million in the same period a year earlier.

Earnings from tourism in July 2022 are estimated at $ 59 million, compared to $ 4 million compared to the same period a year earlier.

In May, the industry revised its earlier targets to a more practical expectation of around 800,000 travellers with an income of $ 800 million by the year-end.

This was the third downward revision from the original target announced at the beginning of the year on 2.3 million tourist arrivals and $ 4.5 billion income, which was again sized down following the spread of COVID Omicron variant by February to 1.3 million travellers with earnings of $ 2.4 billion. (CdeS).

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