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Wednesday, 8 May 2013 03:45 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Cheranka Mendis
The much-delayed first quarter results of tourism for the year released show the lowest quarterly growth since 2011, which is recorded at 10.9%, bringing in a total of 288,798 tourists to the country.
The industry is seen losing its momentum, showing low percentage growth for the quarter as well as the lowest growth rate for a month recorded since 2011 for the month of March.
March 2013 showed only a 7.7% growth compared to the same period last year, bringing in 98,155 tourists to the country. The previous record holder for the lowest percentage growth in a month was July in 2012 (7.8%).
In 2011, the month of March showed a 43.5% growth while in 2012 the growth was 21.3%.
Released by Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority Q1 results showed India as the top market for the country with 38,559 tourists coming in while UK, Germany and France continued to hold positions as second, third and fourth places in the country’s top ten market. These countries brought in 34,354, 24,259 and 19,172 respectively. Also in the top ten are Maldives, Australia, Middle East, Russia, Netherlands and USA.
Regionally, the first three months of the year drew the largest proportion of tourists from Western Europe (129,127 with a 12.6% growth) followed by South Asia with 57,349 tourists and a 3.6% growth from the same period last year. A total of 33,636 tourists came from East Asia, 26,936 from Eastern Europe, 15,306 from North America, 13,153 from Australasia, 11,760 from East Asia and 1,134 from Africa.
Four countries recorded negative growth during this period from the Asian region including India which showed a 4.4% decrease. Other countries joining ranks were Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.
Q1 results in 2012 showed a 21.1% increase over 2011, while 2011 Q1 growth was 34.1%.
On a monthly basis, the largest arrivals from a single country during the month came from Sri Lanka’s traditional market UK with 13,088 tourists pushing India to the second position having brought in only 11,789. However, arrivals from India in March were down by 18.1% from a year earlier.
Taking up the third, fourth and fifth positions were Germany, France, and Russia with arrivals reading 9,145 (16.3%), 6,973 (7%) and 4,143 (38%) respectively.
Sri Lanka has set a target of 1.25 million arrivals in 2013 as part of a plan to hit 2.6 million tourism arrivals by 2016.
