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Saturday, 11 June 2011 00:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Cheranka Mendis
Sri Lanka welcomed 48, 943 tourists in the month of May, recording a 39 per cent increase from a year earlier, backed by large numbers arriving from the South Asian and Western European quarters of the world.
Even though 48,943 is the lowest number of arrivals to be achieved in a month within the first five months of the year, the May figures posted by Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau show that the arrivals for the first five months of the year climbed to 327,902 – a 40.2 per cent increase from the same period last year.
The closest to the January-May figure was achieved in July last year, which was 341,991.
In May arrivals from India rose to 55.8 per cent bringing in 16,649 tourists, followed by UK with 4,452 tourists and Maldives with a 28.2 per cent increase and 2,859 arrivals.
UK, which held the position as the second largest tourist generating country for the year, recorded 9,038 arrivals in April, but failed to keep up the score and slumped by almost half in May. For the first time a negative growth was seen for the year from the UK, which fell by 0.4 per cent, while Switzerland fell by 25.8 per cent, Netherlands by 6.5 per cent and Indonesia by 14.5% in May.
The largest growth process during May 2011 compared to the corresponding period in 2010 was seen from East Asia, which upped its arrivals by 66.8 per cent. Leading the line-up was Philippines with a 192 per cent increase, followed closely by Thailand (170.4 per cent) and China (100.1 per cent). Arrivals from Western Europe rose by 17.4 per cent during the month, led by UK, France and Germany.
When assessing arrivals during the first five months of the year, the leading countries were India with 68,830 tourists (growth of 54.5 per cent), UK with 41,474 tourists (growth of 7.1 per cent), Germany with 23,065, France with 22,335 and Maldives with 15,624.
