November welcomes record tourists numbers

Wednesday, 25 December 2013 00:02 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Even with 2.8% year-on-year growth November welcomes 112,213 tourists
January-November arrivals grow by 15%, bringing Sri Lanka 1,016,228 travellers

By Cheranka Mendis Tourist arrivals in the month of November rose by 2.8% bringing in 112,213 tourists to the country, pushing down October’s record as highest ever turn up for the year and going down in the records as the second highest monthly arrival figure in the country’s tourism history. December 2012 holds the all-time high record for monthly arrivals in the history of Sri Lanka’s tourism with 122,252 tourists, while November statistics of the same year was the second highest with 109,202 arrivals.

October 2013 registered 102,805 arrivals, which is now recorded as the fourth highest for the country. With a 2.8% jump in the month, total arrivals during the first eleven months of 2013 recorded a whopping 1,016,228 arrivals, a 15% growth over the same period last year. The target for 2013 is 1.25 million tourists. Data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority yesterday showed India leading the growth (as at end November), followed closely by UK, Germany, France and Maldives. Arrivals from these countries were 171,675; 111,184; 75,230; 56,106 and 54,577 respectively. Also in the top ten markets are the Middle East (52,645), Australia (43,965), China (40,281), Russia (34,974) and USA (30,692). Contributing to November’s growth, the largest arrivals from a single country during the month came from neighbouring India which recorded an arrival base of 19,779 in November; a 12.2% growth from the year earlier. Recognised as a traditional market, the UK, which has established itself as the second biggest tourist generator to Sri Lanka, recorded an increase of 2.5%, with 11,095 tourists visiting Sri Lanka for the month. Following behind and taking up position as third, fourth and fifth are Germany, Maldives, and Russia with arrivals of 8,468 (3.8%), 7,772 (18.5%) and 7,563 (49.8%) respectively. Regionally, Western Europe recorded the largest number of arrivals even with a negative growth of 2.2% compared to November statistics in 2012, bringing in 35,117 tourists to the country. Arrivals from South Asia were 31,039 (16.5%), East Europe 16,791, East Asia 15,415 and Australasia 5,079. Tourists from North America were recorded as 4,578, Middle East 3,395, Africa 618 and Latin America and the Caribbean 181. When assessing the percentage-wise growth for the month, the largest growth was seen from Indonesia which noted a 215.6% with the total arrival number being 628. A number of the countries however seem to have recorded negative growth. Regionally, along with Western Europe, the Middle East and Australasia also reported negative growths of 44.85% and 24.15% each. Country-wise, negative growth (compared to November 2012) was seen from Canada, USA, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. The biggest setback was recorded from Taiwan which registered 77.9% depreciation in arrivals.