Tourism milestone with 800,000 arrival

Achieving another remarkable milestone in the country’s booming tourism industry, Sri Lanka Tourism welcomed the arrival of the 800,000th tourist in 2011 at the Bandaranaike International Airport yesterday evening.

This is the first time ever; the tourism industry has received arrivals exceeding 800,000 in any given year, making it a ground breaking figure in tourism records. Sri Lanka Tourism offered a special gift and a complimentary package to the tourists who arrived yesterday to visit the country’s well- known attractions. During 2010, the total number of tourist arrivals were recorded at 654,476.

This year has seen a massive contribution to this total from India, Japan, Germany, U.K, France, Netherlands, Italy, and Middle Eastern countries. November 2011 breaks another record being the month which received the highest number of tourists, 90,889 in the history of Sri Lanka Tourism.

During this five year period the country targets to attract US$ 3,000 million worth Foreign Direct investment (FDI) from the tourism sector most of which will be invested in tourism infrastructure development. There will be an increase in the foreign exchange earnings from US$ 500 million in 2010 to USD 2.75 billion by the year 2016. A huge increase is expected in the tourism related employment from 125,000 in 2010 to 500,000 by 2016. All promotional activities and strategic planning of the government of Sri Lanka is aimed at achieving the target number of 2.5 million tourists by 2016.