Tourist arrivals grow by 17.5% in May

• Indian arrivals drop 4.6% despite still being the largest component; overall numbers double from April

Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals grew 17.5 per cent in May to 57, 506 from a year earlier, latest data released by the Tourism Development Authority showed yesterday.

The latest arrival rates were nearly twice that of April, which only recorded a nine per cent increase when compared with last year. So far total tourist arrivals for 2012 stand at 387, 622, which is an 18.2 per cent increase over last year’s numbers up to May.

The Sri Lankan Government has set a target of one million arrivals for 2012.

“Tourists from South Asia continued to form the largest component of travelers with 15,888 arrivals from India. However, as a region arrivals dropped by 0.9 per cent when compared with last year. This was followed by tourists from Western Europe, of which UK citizens formed the largest number,” the report said.

Indian arrivals declined by 4.6 per cent in May for the first time in 2012.

Regionally arrivals from North America jumped 24.3 per cent and Eastern Europe also showed a strong increase of 66.3 per cent to 2367.

East Asia also saw a boost of 41 per cent to 9,311 with numbers from Indonesia, Philippines and Taiwan recording a significant increase when compared to last year.

Chinese tourists increased from 1,337 to 1,564, a 17 per cent rise when compared with May 2011.

Tourist arrivals in April 2012 increased by nine per cent to 69,591, with arrivals during the first four months of 2012 amounting to 330,116, reflecting a growth of 18.3 per cent.

“Earnings from tourism in April 2012 grew at a healthy rate of 15.8 per cent to US$ 72 million compared to the corresponding month of 2011 and by 25.7 per cent during the first four months of 2012 to US$ 340 million,” the Central Bank said in its latest report.