2023 tourist arrival target missed due to issues in Israel and Russia: SLTDA Chief

• From October, tourist arrivals from Israel dropped to zero
• Dual registration issues for Russian charter contributed to drop in arrival numbers
• Expresses confidence in recording higher growth in terms of arrivals and revenue in 2024

Sri Lanka narrowly missed its year-end tourist arrival target for 2023, due to issues in Israel and approval delays in Russia, the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) said.
Sri Lanka was witnessing an increased arrival rate from Israel; however, from October, all planned activities came to a halt, SLTDA Chairman Priantha Fernando told Mirror Business.
“We would have done better, if not for the crises in Israel, which was registering good arrival rates. But for the last four months, it dropped to zero,” Fernando said.
From October, two scheduled weekly flights were to operate from Israel, which was also scrapped. For the January 01 to December 31, 2023 period, Sri Lanka welcomed 19,517 visitors from Israel. It was the 14th largest source market for Sri Lanka tourism.
Similarly, Sri Lanka was also gearing up to welcome four charter flights from Russia every week to Mattala. This too was hampered with the aircraft not being successful in obtaining the dual registration in Russia and Ireland.
“They did not get the civil aviation clearance. With that alone, we lost 2,000 tourists from the first week of December. If not for all these, we would have exceeded the target and done much better,” he said. Further, the limited seat capacities of key markets, namely Australia, Japan, South Korea and certain European countries, too contributed to the target being missed, despite the demand.
Despite the shortfall, Fernando said the tourism sector enters the new year with many expectations and hopes for faster growth. 

 “All this time, the Maldives was ahead of us. In December, we exceeded the arrivals recorded by the Maldives. Taking into account the full 12 months, we (Sri Lanka) grew by 128 percent over the previous year, whereas in the Maldives, it is only 26 percent.
So, definitely we are on the right track. We are doing something right,” he said.
Accordingly, Sri Lanka aims to lure 2.3 million tourist arrivals for the year 2024, with a US $ 4.2 billion revenue target.
Sri Lanka aimed to end 2023 with 1.55 million international visitors but ended the year with 1.48 million tourist arrivals.
India, Russia and the United Kingdom emerged as the largest tourist traffic generators for Sri Lanka. The markets accounted for 20 percent, 13 percent and 9 percent of the total tourist arrivals for 2023.