Tourism booming

Sri Lanka has recorded a 15.7 percent increase in tourist arrivals in January with the arrival of 85,874. It was 74,197 during the same period last year.

A record 36,497 tourists arrived from Western Europe accounting for 11.9 percent of total increase.

Another 19,209 tourists arrived from South Asia. Visitors from Eastern Europe rose 22 percent to 6,838, with Russian tourists increasing by 43 percent to 2,790. North American tourists were up 21 percent to 5,177. Visitors from Canada rose by 23 percent, USA by 18 percent, Middle East by 70 percent to 3,950 and Chinese arrivals by 21 percent to 1,952 during last month.

Sri Lanka has drawn up a five year plan to increase the number of tourist arrivals to 2.5 million by 2016. Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals increased by 30 percent to 855,975 from January to December in 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. This is the first time ever that the tourism industry arrivals passed the 800,000 mark. 2011 has also seen huge arrivals from India, Japan, Germany, U.K, France, the Netherlands and other countries.