Sri Lanka among the Fastest Growing Tourism Destinations For 2024

Sri Lanka is now the fifth-fastestgrowing tourism destination, according to data released this year by www.traveloffpath.com. The other four nations are Morocco in third position, Mexico in second place, Tunisia in first place, and the Dominican Republic in fourth place.

Since that 4 million tourists are anticipated in Sri Lanka in 2024, this might be viewed as a powerful endorsement for the country.

“A new year is a fresh and exciting chapter for all of us travellers.

It’s a new start, and we can start dreaming about the undiscovered destinations our passports might take us to.

But, if you had to pick the places you thought would be the hottest destinations in 2024, where would you choose? Somewhere in Europe? Asia? Maybe even Africa?”

Part of this credit should also go to the Tourists Board of Sri Lanka and the Honorable Minister of Tourism for all the initiatives taken in the latter part of 2023 to boost the image of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka got the opportunity to get endorsed by the famous mega travel influencer Nas Daily also for the first time in the year 2023.

According to the web site of

Travel-off-path;

“The island nation of Sri Lanka has long fascinated travelers from around the world thanks to its exotic nature, warm climate, colorful culture, and amazing food.

Regularly ranking as one of the cheapest locations for digital nomads, Sri Lanka can offer you a slower pace of life by the beach, with plenty of culture and natural wonders to keep you entertained in your downtime.” – www.traveloffpath.com.

One of the biggest obstacles to overcome is getting labeled as the cheapest destination to travel which would make us getting attracted to budget travellers and backpackers only. To ensure that we draw high calibre visitors to Sri Lanka, it is crucial to carve out a niche for those who can afford to spend more or to set a minimum spend threshold, similar to Bhutan.

The new campaign and the reality Adding to all the good work of the ministry – the new campaign for Sri Lanka; You’ll come back for more was also launched recently. After having many national brand image building campaigns with unrelated tag lines such as; A land Like No Other, Small Miracle and So Sri Lanka, finally a better tag line is launched. Though it’s a catchy tagline, the challenge will be to actually deliver this in the local context.

The majority of visitors from other countries to Sri Lanka express extreme dissatisfaction with the way the local people treat them. Female travellers were found to have experienced harassment from beach boys, tuk-tuk drivers, tour guides, and most notably, lodging establishment proprietors, in a recent poll.

An excellent illustration of a genuine tourism destination is Sri Lanka. To draw in travellers who are eager to see Sri Lanka, no additional structures need to be constructed. All we need is a platform that would guarantee their safety and allow them to honestly share their experiences. After that, we can start a project to give them the chance to see Sri Lanka as it is.

Since tourism is one of Sri Lanka’s main sources of income, it should be taught as a subject in schools. It is regrettable that there is a younger generation of people who believe that they should just have fun with foreigners. These travellers’ ignored complaints would never convince them to return to Sri Lanka until immediate action was taken.

Looking back at 2019

However, we rose to the top of the vacation destination list in 2019 before this. Sri Lanka was rated the world’s best place to visit in 2019 by Lonely Planet, nearly ten years after its civil war ended. The south Asian island was selected for the top spot in the guidebook publisher’s annual Best in Travel awards due to improved transit connections, newly constructed hotels, and an increasing array of activities. Unfortunately, we were unable to take advantage of it because of the Easter attack.

After five years of 2019 we have come to a similar standing once again, let’s hope and pray that the same doesn’t happen again in 2024.