Tourist arrivals cross 100,000 mark for first time since Easter attacks

„July arrivals reach 113,701, up from June’s 63,072

„50% of total traffic received from Europe

„Sri Lanka expects 2mn tourists by end-2019

Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals crossed 100,000 mark for the first time since the April 21 bombings, as the arrivals for the month of July were recorded at 113,701, up from 63,072 in June, the data released by the tourism office showed.

However, the July arrivals were still 47 percent down on a year-on-year (YOY) basis.

Europe became the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 50 percent of the total traffic received in July 2019.Asia and Pacific accounted for 38 percent of the total traffic, America 6 percent, the Middle East 5 percent and Africa one percent.

India, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and China were Sri Lanka’s top five international tourist-generating markets in the month of July, this year.

India was the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 16 percent of the total traffic received in July 2019.

The United Kingdom accounted for 11 percent of the total traffic, while Germany, France and China accounted for 7 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

As at July 31, 2019, 1,124,150 of tourists had visited Sri Lanka for this year. It is a decline of 18.7 percent over last year when 1,382,476 of tourists visited the country during the same period.

Sri Lanka is now expecting two million tourists by the end of this year, down from the original three million target, following the Easter Sunday attacks.

Tourism earnings are also estimated to come down by US $ 1-1.5 billion. The tourism industry generated US $ 4.4 billion in earnings last year.