Sri Lanka has recorded a 16.5% year-on-year growth in tourist arrivals from January to November 2012 attracting 883,353 tourists, overtaking Maldives, according to tourism authorities.

Maldives managed to get only 866,310 tourists for the period with a 2.4% growth, monthly bulletins released by relevant tourism authorities showed. With regard to Maldivian tourist arrivals, China accounted for almost a quarter of total cumulative arrivals, more than double the size of next largest market Germany.

During the same period last year, Sri Lanka had 758,458 arrivals while Maldives recorded 845,732.. In November 2012 alone, Sri Lanka attracted 109, 202 tourists with a YoY 20.1% increase, up from 90,889 arrivals in November 2011. Sri Lanka tourism data also revealed that during January to November this year, 220,114 travellers arrived from the South Asian region with India leading with 157,399.

The region’s YoY growth recorded as 3.9%. From Western Europe, the highest number, as usual, was from the United Kingdom, 101,357 with an YoY growth of 5.6%. Visitors from China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan amounted to 115,672 arrivals for the first eleven months, recording a YoY growth of 34.6%.

The global tourism industry has a total of one billion outbound tourists with a US $ 3.4 billion daily revenue, and according to Sri Lanka tourism officials, the island nation’s tourism industry would be driven predominantly by Asia in the years to come. They also said that the revenue from tourism had risen 22.1 percent to $790.1 million in the first 10 months of 2012, over the same period last year.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Economic Development said a programme, with the involvement of the private sector, is underway to double the hotel room capacity to 50,000 by year 2016 to accommodate the number tourist arrivals, which is expected at 2.5 million.

(You need to login first to read complete news).
New User? Register for FREE!
» Back to Travel News