Sri Lanka's tourism arrivals rose 63.1 percent in November to 72,251 from a year earlier, while total visitors for the 11 months increased 45.7 percent to 569,849, tourism promotion office data showed.
Sri Lanka has seen a surge of tourists with the end of a war in May 2009.Visitors from Western Europe, the key source of revenue to Sri Lanka's resorts during the so-called current winter season peak rose 61.7 percent to 35,594 during the month, while the total so far was up 50.5 percent to 150,161 from a year earlier.
British visitors were up 54.5 percent to 9,788, Germans were up 41.6 percent to 4,862, Frech were up 127 percent to 3,232 and Dutch tourists were up 69.4 percent to 1,875 during November.
South Asia generated the next highest tourists, up 65.2 percent to 22,091. Arrivals to November were up 37.6 percent to 152,067. Indian visitors were up 77.3 percent to 15,50, Maldives was up 42.0 percent to 5,091 and Pakistan was up 44.2 percent to 982.Indian visitors totaled 111,129 for the 11 months to November, the lead generating country, ahead of the UK at 95,320.
Eastern Europe generated 42.4 percent higher visitors at 4,920 with Russia up 38.4 percent to 2,063. North America was up 56.4 percent with USA generating 1,691 visitors, up 43.1 percent.
Visitors from the Middle East rose 71.6 percent to 4,953.
Image: Sri Lanka Tourism Chairman Dr Nalaka Godahewa and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Managing Director Malraj Kiriella welcoming Merchant Maritime Welfare Centre CEO Nick Davis of UK, the 600,000th tourist and his partner Layla Dayani of UK at the Bandaranaike International Airport. Davis and Dayani arrived in a SriLankan Airlines flight from London at 3.55pm yesterday. (Courtesy of www.dailynews.lk, Picture by Kumarasiri Prasad).
Tourism is picking up and numbers are sure going up. But authorities must take immediate action to address the issue of shortage of rooms.
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