14 January 2022 10:35 am Views - 99
By Ajith Siriwardana
Sri Lanka was targeting over one million tourist arrivals in 2022, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) said yesterday. A total of 29,420 tourists had arrived in the country within the first ten days in January this year.
SLTDA Chairperson Kimarli Fernando said the highest number of tourists had arrived from the Russian Federation which is 5,432 and 5,175 from India.
“A total of 2,820 tourists had arrived from Ukraine, 2,122 from the United Kingdom, 1,916 from Germany, 1,182 from the Maldives, 1075 from France, 1,030 from Australia, 753 from Poland, 657 from Kazakhstan. Some 7,258 had arrived from other countries,” she said.
Speaking at the online press conference of the Presidential Media Centre (PMC), She said more than 1.9 million tourists had arrived in Sri Lanka in 2019 and added that due to the pandemic situation, tourist arrivals had decreased to 507,704 in 2020 and 194,495 in 2021.
She said Sri Lanka was targeting about 1.1 million tourists this year unless the pandemic hits the tourism industry. Ms Fernando said a new mobile phone application would be introduced for tourists visiting Sri Lanka this year.