August tourist arrivals dip 20% from July

• August arrivals totalled 37,760
• Destination SL inches away from reaching half a million arrivals mark for 2022
• UK, India and Germany rank as top three source markets for August
• SriLankan Airlines, Qatar Airways and Emirates rank as top three carriers that have helped generate tourist traffic to SL 

The tourist arrivals for the month of August witnessed a 20 percent dip when compared with the previous month, with the numbers totalling to 37,760. 

With the August number, the arrivals for the first eight months of the year totalled to 496,420, making Sri Lanka inches away from the half a million mark. 

The August arrival figure is a dip when compared with the marginal increase in the number of international visitors entering the country seen in the month of June and July. After the impressive arrivals seen in March (106,500), the highest since Sri Lanka opened for tourism after the pandemic, the numbers crumbled to 62,980 in April and then further contracted to 30,207 in May, due to the worsening of the political and economic crisis in the country. 

The month of June and July saw the arrivals improve to 32,856 and 47,293. However, the reimposition of travel advisories against the island nation resulted in dampened arrival numbers for August. 

The provisional data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority show that the first week of August had the highest weekly arrivals (11,046), after which the number of international visitors entering the country continued to decline for the next two weeks and picked up once again in the final week (8,847).  The improvement in August week three from week two (8,317) can be attributed to the increase in confidence amongst tourists around the world to visit destination Sri Lanka, as the country’s situation began to improve. 

The top source markets for Sri Lanka tourism for August are the United Kingdom, India and Germany, whereas the top three airlines that contributed to the arrivals are SriLankan Airlines, Qatar Airways and Emirates Airlines.  The cumulative analysis shows that for the January 01 to August 31 period, the top three tourist traffic generators are India, the United Kingdom and Russian Federation. 

With the political and economic environment showing some improvement and less volatility than what was witnessed in the months of April and May, tourist source markets began relaxing travel advisories to the country last week. 

Majority of the nations relaxed the travel advisories from Level 3 (orange) - ‘Reconsider need to travel, to Level 2 (yellow) - ‘Exercise a high degree of caution. A further relaxation will place Sri Lanka among the ‘green’ nations where tourists are advised to ‘Exercise normal safety precaution’, which is the lowest advisory. A higher advisory means higher risk. 

Some of the countries that relaxed the travel advisory to Sri Lanka include the UK, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway.