Sri Lanka Tourist Arrivals up by 48.5% for the 1st Five Months

14th June 2010, www.news.lk

Tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka have doubled from January to May this year when compared to tourist arrivals for the same period last year.

Tourist arrivals for the first five months last year amounted for 157,000 and compared to this number the tourist arrivals during the first five months this year amounted to 233,000 showing an increase of 48.5% compared to the same period last year.

This massive increase in the tourist increase has been possible following an intensive tourist promotion campaigned launched by the government in several foreign countries and through popular madia channels including CNN, Aljazeera, and National Geographic Channel.

Media personnel from National Geographic Channel and leading publications such as New York Times visited Sri Lanka and made first hand investigations on the tourist facilities and scenic, cultural,historical locations, and food varieties attractive to
tourists in Sri Lanka and following such visits the National Geographic Channel named Sri Lanka as the 2nd most attractive place to visit while the New York Times named Sri Lanka as the best among the 32 most attractive tourist locations in the world.

The tourists arrived in Sri Lanka during the last five months showed a 101% increase from the Middle East countries, 40% increase from the East European countries, 77% increase from France, 74% increase from Germany and 79% increase from India.

Tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka last year amounted to 450,000 tourists and the government targets to increase this number to 600,000 by end of this year, and the government is confident that this target can be easily achieved with the ongoing projects being launched to improve infrastructure facilities, room facilities and beautification programmes.

Related Info:
Sri Lanka Tourist Arrivals (2009 to 2010) : A comparisan chart and other statistics from SLTDA.

Sri Lanka Tourist Arrivals Grow - Statistics from 1999 Show an Upward Trend