Sri Lanka welcomes over 150,000 tourists in first 20 days

Monday, 26 February 2024 04:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Pushes cumulative figure to 361,128
Russia, India, UK, China, Germany top source markets

Sri Lanka has welcomed over 150,000 tourists in the first 20 days of the month, pushing the year-to-date figure to 361,128.

The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) released provisional figures yesterday, indicating that 152,875 tourists were welcomed in the first 20 days of the month led by Russian travellers.

This achievement exceeds the total arrivals recorded for the entire month of February in 2023 which was registered at 107,639. Industry analysts said the sector is making significant strides toward its ambitious goal of 238,614 monthly arrivals for February.

The data also showed that the daily average arrivals have picked up to 7,644 in February so far, a stark increase compared to last year as well as to January which stood at 6,717.

Russia leads the arrivals during the first 15 days of the month with 22,107 visitors, followed by India with 20,271, UK with 14,845 tourists, China with 11,375 and Germany with 11,130 arrivals. In addition, visitors from France, Poland, Australia, US and Netherlands were also welcomed.

India maintains its position as the top tourist source market for Sri Lanka year-to-date (YTD), with a cumulative total of 54,670 arrivals, followed by Russia with 53,266, UK with 31,510, Germany with 24,723 and China with 22,886 arrivals.

For 2024, Sri Lanka Tourism has set an ambitious target to welcome 2.3 million tourists and earn over $ 4.5 billion.