Tourism achieves record 750,000 arrivals

Achieving another remarkable milestone in the country's booming tourism industry, Sri Lanka Tourism welcomed the arrival of 750,000th tourist at the Bandaranaike International Airport yesterday.

This is the first time ever that the tourism industry has received arrivals exceeding 700,000 in any given year making it a ground breaking figure in tourism records.

Sri Lanka will also have record revenue by the end of the year and is expected to pass the US $ one billion mark.

During year 2010 , total number of tourist arrivals recorded was 654,476 as opposed to 750,000 so far, which is a 34.2% annual growth.

This year has seen a huge contribution from Latin American, Caribbean and Western European countries including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France Netherlands, UK and Germany.

These regions alone have attracted 250, 847 tourists sharing a major portion out of the 750,000 arrivals recorded so far.

Sri Lanka Tourism offered a special gift and a complimentary package to the tourist arrived today keeping its promise of rewarding the 750,000th tourist and similar rewards were available for the 250,000th 500,000th ,600,000th tourist who visited Sri Lanka in the year 2011.