First 19 days of June attracts 18,305 tourists, pushing cumulative figure to 396,826
Lowest recorded in three-week period this year from previous measly 21,102 recorded in May
Daily average arrivals further plunged to 963
India tops tourist arrivals with 3,809 followed by UK 1,924 and Australia 1,367
Sri Lanka has attracted over 18,000 tourists in the first three weeks of this month, despite the multiple challenges emanating from political, economic and social issues over the past couple of months.
It is the lowest number of tourists received in three weeks of any month thus far, worsening industry hopes for a post-pandemic upturn. The previous low was 21,102 visitors recorded last month.
As per the provisional data by Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), a total of 18,305 tourists have arrived during the first 19 days of the month, whilst pushing the cumulative figure to 396,826 so far.
However, it is notable that the daily average arrivals have dropped significantly to 963 in the first three weeks of June. The daily average arrivals in March was as high as over 3,600 and it dropped to 2,099 by the end of April and further dropped to 974 in May following the declaration of State of emergency, political unrest, power, and energy crisis.
Industry stakeholders pointed out that the sector and economy have taken a heavy toll from the triple blow since 2019, which is incomparable to any other trade or tourism destination.
The data showed that in the first week of June, there were 6,555 tourist arrivals, but the trend dropped slightly in the second and third weeks to 6,383 and 5,367 respectively.
As of 19 June, India topped the tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 3,809, followed by the UK with 1,924, and Australia with 1,367 tourists. In addition, tourists were also received from Canada, Germany, Russia, the US, Maldives, France and Spain.
The cricket loving ‘The Fanatics’ from Australia slightly elevated arrival numbers whilst emerging as the third biggest source market in June so far.
India also stands strong as the top tourists source market for Sri Lanka with cumulative number of arrivals at 65,760 (21%) followed by the UK with 48,178, Russia 45,896, Germany 32,194, France 20,812, Ukraine 13,760, Poland 12,617, Canada 12,028 and US 11,060.
Tourism Minister Harin Fernando also kicked off the ‘Sri Lanka Can’ campaign early this month to boost arrivals, with the support from Bollywood actors who will speak positively about the atmosphere in destination Sri Lanka.
It was revealed that three road shows are planned for India, as an immediate promotion, whilst they hope to roll out a marketing campaign in risk-averse markets such as India, the Middle East, Russia and CIS countries soon.
Under new leadership, the industry revised its earlier targets to a more practical expectation of around 800,000 tourists with an income of $ 800 million by year-end.
This was the third downward revision from the original target announced at the beginning of the year on 2.3 million tourist arrivals and $ 4.5 billion income, which was again sized down following the spread of COVID Omicron variant by February to 1.3 million travellers with earnings of $ 2.4 billion.
FT