Sri Lanka welcomes nearly 100,000 tourists in first 20 days of August

Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka for the first 20 days of August totalled 98,831. 

The provisional data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority showed that for the August 01 to 20 period, the daily tourist arrival average is 4,941, which indicates that the island nation welcomed over 103,000 by August 21.

Sri Lanka has set a target of attracting 149,075 tourists for the month of August.

With the performance in August, Sri Lanka has achieved the milestone of surpassing 100,000 arrivals in seven out of the eight months thus far, this year. The exception was May, during which the island nation recorded a count of 83,390 international visitors, falling below the 100,000 mark.

Accordingly, the cumulative tourist arrivals for the first eight months ending on August 20 stood at 866,744.
In the first week of August (01-07), Sri Lanka welcomed 35,775 international visitors. In the second week (08-14), the arrivals increased to 37,890. However, in the six days of the third week, the tourist arrivals dropped to 25,166. 

India has taken the lead as the primary source market for Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, accounting for 20 percent of the overall tourist arrivals during the 20-day period, which translates to 19,804 international visitors. 

Ranking second is the UK, bringing in 12 percent of the tourists (12,188). In the third place is China, contributing 7 percent of the arrivals, bringing in 6,964 visitors. 

The other key source markets include Germany and France. The Russian Federation, which was the largest tourist traffic generator for Sri Lanka since the opening of borders after the Covid-19 pandemic, has slipped to the sixth position. It accounted for only 5 percent of the tourist arrivals during the period under review.