Holidaymakers’ numbers spike in April

Travellers to Sri Lanka have increased last month with a 17.5 per cent growth recorded compared to the same period last year.

Arrivals fell in February and March primarily due to the partial closure of the main airport, Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) for maintenance work.

Over 160,000 visitors arrived in the island during the New Year holiday month compared to 136,367 in the same month in 2016, statistics released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority indicated.

Indian arrivals were the highest at 26,323 up by a marginal 2 per cent

Tand China was up by 4.5 per cent at 19,823 this year. UK, the third highest source market, saw arrivals surge by 48.6 per cent to 17,841 from same period last year. This is compared to a UK growth of 6.9 per cent in April 2016 against April 2015 while there was no immediate reason for the sharp rise apart from a probability of pent-up demand arising out of the partial closure of the airport.In the first four months however West Asian arrivals had dropped by 5.6 per cent compared to the same period last year. South Asia was also down. Other countries in Western Europe also did well. he Earl's Group has begun establishing a number of new properties with the latest being a property at Kurunegala in close proximity to the proposed Colombo- Kandy expressway.

The new property is being built by the Earl ' s G roup at Bandaranaike Mawatha in Kurunegala with 36 rooms and two banquet halls, the company's Sales and Marketing Manager Dhinuk De Mel told the Business Times on Tuesday.

He noted that the new hotel