Sri Lanka: Tourist Arrivals Increase Nearly 17% in November

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Despite the political crisis, which engulfed the country since October 26, Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals rose 16.8 percent in November compared to the same period last year, the data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) showed. The month recorded 195,582 tourists arriving in the country compared to the 167,511 arrived in November 2017.

As at 30th November 2018, 2,080,627 tourists had visited Sri Lanka for this year. It is an 11.2 percent growth over last year when 1,871,871 tourists had visited the country during the same period. This month, the largest source market for tourists is India, followed by United Kingdom and China.

Asia and Pacific continued to be the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 47 percent of the total traffic received in November 2018. Europe accounted for 43 percent of the total traffic, America 6 percent, Middle East 3 percent and Africa 1 percent. India, United Kingdom, China, Germany and Australia were Sri Lanka’s top five international tourist generating markets in the month of November this year.

India was the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 20 percent of the total traffic received in November 2018. United Kingdom accounted for 11 percent of the total traffic, while China, Germany and Australia accounted for 10 percent, 10 percent and 5 percent respectively.

Arrivals from North America rose 22.0 percent to 9,407 in November and the arrivals from US rose 24.9 percent to 5,799 during the month while arrivals from Canada increased 16.8 percent.

Tourist arrivals from Europe increased by 37.1 percent with the arrival of 89,716 tourists. Most of the tourists came from UK (21,971), followed by Germany (18,754) and France (6,825).

Tourist arrivals from Middle East declined by 12.1 percent with the arrival of 3,235 visitors compared to the 3,681 arrived in November 2017. Tourist arrivals from Asia & Pacific increased by 2.4 percent with 91,406 arriving in the island. Tourist arrivals from India increased by 21.4 percent with 39,137 visitors while arrivals from China declined by 1.8 percent to record 18,888 arrivals.

Arrivals from Australia recorded 51.9 percent increase with 10,299 visitors entering the country in November 2018.

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