Sri Lanka passed 500,000 tourist arrivals in just the third month of 2024, with over 100,000 tourists coming in March alone confirming hat the industry is making excellent headway towards strong growth.
Since the COVID pandemic began, this is the first time the island nation has reached over half a million visitors in just two and a half months – last year, Sri Lanka reached this milestone in the second week of May.
The provisional data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority showed that for the first 14 days of March, Sri Lanka welcomed 91,205 international visitors.
Sri Lanka Tourist Arrivals 6 March 2024
The cumulative number of tourist arrivals from January 1st to March 14th reached 517,808.
If the current level of tourist arrivals continues, Sri Lanka could reach 200,000 arrivals for the third month in a row – a first for the country since the start of the Covid pandemic.
The Russian Federation is the biggest contributor to tourism in March, with 15% of all tourist arrivals (13.699) and ranking second India accounted for around 15% too with 13,492 visitors.
Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and China are also significant source markets.
During the initial two months of the year, the tourism industry generated a total revenue of US $ 687.5 million and this represents a 118.2% increase year on year.
