First two weeks of January bring in 47,353 tourists

• Daily arrival average reaches 3,156
• Up 13% when compared with same period in 2022
• Russia, India and Germany rank as top three tourist traffic generators 

Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka in the January 01-15 period stood at 47,353, up 13 percent from the same period, last year. 

The provisional data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority showed that the daily arrival average for the period was 3,156.

According to the weekly arrival analysis, for the first week of January (01-07), a total of 20,875 tourists entered the country, whereas in the second week (08-15), the arrivals increased to 26,478. 

Continuing to top the list as the largest source market for Sri Lanka is the Russian Federation, which accounted for 25 percent of the total tourist arrivals.

Ranking second is India, contributing 12 percent to the total tourism traffic and coming third is Germany, accounting for 8 percent of the total tourist arrivals. 

The UK dropped to fourth position, contributing to 8 percent of the arrivals, bringing in 83 less international travellers when compared with Germany.

Sri Lanka tourism aims to welcome a total of 1.5 million tourists for the 12 months of 2023. The island nation will have to bring in an average of 125,000 international visitors per month to realise that target.