Tourist arrivals up by 21.3% in March

Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka picked up by 21.3% in March in comparison to last year. Last month 91,102 tourists visited the country and this figure was 75,130 in 2011 March. This was also the highest number of arrivals in a month for 2012.

Once again Indian arrivals topped with 13,908, while due to the English cricket tour 12,032 tourists from the UK visited Sri Lanka last month.

German and French arrivals too maintained their robust performance accounting to 7,654 and 6,378 respectively.

Despite budget carrier Air Asia operating for more than two years Malaysian arrival figures were disappointing with only 1,958 arrivals.

Sri Lanka this year is aiming at a golden double of one million tourist arrivals and US $ one billion revenue from the industry. (SS)