Tourist arrivals exceed 84k in first three weeks of March

A group of tourists at Independence Square in Colombo 
Pic by Pradeep Pathirana 

• Daily arrival average improves to 4,024
• Cumulative tourist arrivals for year reach 294,769
• China makes it to top 10 source market list 

Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka topped 84,000 in the first three weeks of March.
The provisional data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority showed that during the March 01-21 period, the island nation welcomed 84,585 international visitors.

Accordingly, the cumulative tourist arrivals for January 01 to March 21 stand at 294,769.
The daily arrival average for the month of March has improved to 4,027. 

An analysis of the weekly arrivals shows that for all three weeks, the inflow of international visitors has been above 27,000. In the first week, tourist arrivals were recorded at 27,573, which improved to 29,466 in the second week. In the third week, the arrivals dropped to 2,7546.

The increase in arrivals in the second week is due to the arrival of 250 female athletes from France to participate in the adventure trail Raid Amazones 2023. The group, along with officials and crew, arrived in the island nation on March 20.

Sri Lanka also welcomed a crowd of over 150 tourism industry stakeholders from across the world in March, who arrived to take part in the first-ever International MICE Expo hosted by the island nation.  Meanwhile, retaining the position as the largest tourist traffic generator is the Russian Federation, accounting for 22 percent of the total arrivals during the period under review. Ranking second is India, bringing in 15 percent of the total number of tourists. 

Ranking third and taking over the position of the United Kingdom is Germany, which contributed to 8 percent of the arrivals. 

China has moved up in Sri Lanka’s list of top source markets. It is now among the top 10 tourist traffic generators and stands at the ninth position. Just last week, China was in the 13th position.