Tourist arrivals pick up in July

After the disappointing June arrivals, the tourist arrivals in July grew at a faster pace with Sri Lanka welcoming 187,810 foreign visitors in the month.

In July, tourist arrivals grew by 31.3 percent from a year ago, which is partly driven by the influx in arrivals for Dawoodi Bohra International Convention held in Colombo from 7 to 19 July. The convention is expected to have drawn about 15,000 foreign visitors to the island nation. 

July tourist arrivals is a significant improvement compared to June when the country’s tourist arrival growth slowed to just 13 percent, the lowest in the year.

However, the country yet again fell behind to reach the target of 203,474 - 220,599 arrivals set for July. In addition, tourist arrivals in the month remains behind 217,829 tourist arrivals recorded in July 2018.

India continued to account for the largest source of arrivals in the month with 22.9 percent followed by 11.1 percent and 6.9 percent arrivals from U.K, and China. The Netherlands and Germany occupied fourth and fifth positions accordingly. 

Meanwhile, Russia fell out of the top 10 list for the first time in the year. In addition, Maldives which came to occupy two spots in tourist arrivals in recent months was not be seen among top ten source markets in the month.  

At end of July,  cumulative arrivals  reached 1,198,059 tourists. India took the top spot with 225,641 arrivals followed by Russia and United Kingdom with 118,682 and 110,189 arrivals respectively. 

Despite arrivals continuing to fall short of targets set for the year so far, the country’s tourism authorities remain optimistic of achieving the 2.3 million arrival target for the year. (NF)