Sri Lanka has welcomed a total of 69,941 tourists in the first 26 days of December, bringing the total number of arrivals to 174,930 for the year so far.

The Tourism Ministry said the hike in arrival numbers is due to increased tourist traffic from India, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, the United States, France, the Maldives, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

In recent months, the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) along with the industry stakeholders rolled out promotional efforts in Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Ukraine for the winter season.
The outcome of the programme was over 7,500 tourists arriving from Russia and over 6,500 arriving from the UK. Similarly, over 4,000 tourists arrived from Germany and over 2,000 from France and Ukraine.

Increased tourist arrivals from the target market was also due to several international airlines, such as Aeroflot from Russia, Air France from France and Air Astana from Kazakhstan, commencing direct flights to Sri Lanka.  Tourism Minister Prasanna Ranatunga said that in an effort to achieve a higher number of arrivals in 2022, plans are afoot to upgrade the facilities at major tourist attractions. The facelift will be carried out via an inter-ministerial joint programme.

In a statement to the media, the minister also shared that the government is working to build tourism facilities in major cities and further develop tourism facilities in the vicinity of waterfalls and other tourist attractions.