Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Thursday, 9 January 2014 00:09 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
at the final 1.27 million figure for the year 2013.
The original target for the year was to bring in 1.25 million tourists.
The release of the record 1.27 million figure via a press advertisement caused debate within tourism circles early in the week. This was because as at end November 2013, cumulative arrivals amounted to 1,016,228. The press ad mentioned a final year figure of 1,274,593, which prompted analysts to question whether there were 258,365 arrivals in December to boost the final number to 1.27 million.
A top official yesterday confirmed to the Daily FT that the numbers have been changed after careful review of all monthly figures, following a discrepancy that was seen in the November figures between the data released by the Department of Immigration and Emigration and the calculations of the statistics collected by Sri Lanka Tourism.
The original data released mid last month on November cited arrivals of 112,213, the highest-ever recorded for a single month. After the review, the numbers were corrected as 109,420, only a 2% increase from November 2012.
However, the rest of the revised data shows higher increases in all other months, sparking dialogue on whether the numbers were manipulated by the authorities to bring the final count to surpass the intended target for the year.
During the year, there was a steady delay in releasing the monthly statistics, which are published by the Research and International Relations Division of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority as well.
The top Tourism official noted that the numbers published as reviewed were all taken from the final print that came from the Immigration Department, after careful examination of the difference between that of Sri Lanka Tourism and the former institution.
“The statistical estimates for the year 2013 were prepared after validating with the data received from the border control system of Department of Immigration and Emigration,” the official said.
He noted that tourism numbers have been counted via the embarkation cards that visitors are required to fill in when arriving at the airport, which is delivered to the Department of Immigration located at Punchi Borella. “We have our staff there, manually collecting and entering the data in to the system.”
Two issues occur at this end, he said. “One, we do not know if we get all the embarkation cards and two, there is no data verification after entering it to the system.”
Admitting that the sole responsibility of the issue rests within Sri Lanka Tourism authorities, he tagged this as a “system issue”.
The decision to re-check all the numbers came when the Department of Immigration sent out the final print to Sri Lanka Tourism. “We saw a difference in the November and December figures that they sent and what we had, hence we decided to go through all months and requested that they send us individual monthly statistics.”
According to data that was with Sri Lanka Tourism prior to the change, Sri Lanka was said to have received 1.3 million tourists.
“The Department of Immigration was very confident of their numbers. Therefore, we had to go through ours.”
To ensure that such variations do not occur this year, Sri Lanka Tourism is said to have requested database updates on a weekly basis from the Department of Immigration.
“We are also linking online to check the entries. We want to do a proper survey to ensure that transit data is not entered and only those considered as ‘tourists’ are taken in to account.”
The manual system will be continued as well, which will be duly clarified with the numbers sent by the Immigration prior to release.
In 2013, it was noted that tourism generated revenue of US$ 1.45 billion, creating 112,550 direct employment and 157,600 indirect employment opportunities.
The tourist arrival target for this year is 1.5 million. This number is now being reviewed as well, an official said. US$ 1.8 billion worth of revenue is expected to be generated during the year.
