Year to date tourist arrivals top 200,000; surpass figure achieved in entirety of 2021

Sri Lanka has recorded over 200,000 tourists so far this year led by Russians, surpassing the 194,495 received for the entirety of 2021.

It is also the highest number of tourists received post-pandemic.

As per the provincial data released by the Tourism Ministry 200,798 travellers have arrived from 1 January to 6 March.

Tourism Minister Prasanna Ranatunga said despite the challenges emanating from the global COVID pandemic as well as the unrest in Eastern Europe, it was a significant achievement by Sri Lanka to be recognised as a safe and secure destination.

As per the provisional data of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) 21,964 tourists have arrived in the country during the first six days of March. Sri Lanka received 82,327 tourists in January and 96,507 in February — the highest number of tourists visiting the country in a month after two years.

Despite the conflict, Russia continues to dominate the top source market to Sri Lanka with 31,912. However, India was the top tourist traffic to Sri Lanka for the month of March, which accounts to 4,395, followed by Russia with 3,094, Germany 2,240 and 969 from France.

“Sri Lanka is currently focusing on new tourism markets,” the Minister said, adding that attention has been drawn to a number of countries which had not previously promoted Sri Lanka as a tourist destination and special promotion programs have been planned on targeting those countries.

Ranatunga also said that the Finance Minister had recently agreed to provide $ 56 million for the Global Communication Campaign (GCC) in the second quarter of this year.