Tourist arrivals growth slows in October but still up 18% to 1.44 m so far

By Shehana Dain

Following an impressive September, Year-on-Year (YoY) tourist arrivals for October slowed down as it increased by 8.8%, the lowest growth rate since April.

The month recorded 132,280 tourists arriving in the country compared to the 121,576 who arrived in October 2014.

Nevertheless, it is in marked contrast to the 13.6% contrast (YoY) increase for the month of October last year. According to SLTDA and SLTPB Chairman Paddy Withana, external issues in the Middle Eastern region and Russia were a significant blow on the result.

Withana told the Daily FT that this was due to external market forces.“There were mainly significant drops in the Russian and Middle Eastern markets. Russia with its recession has been continually contributing less to our tourist arrivals overall. 

As for the Middle Eastern markets, from a cumulative point of view there’s an increase of 10%; it’s just that in this particular month there is a drop. There have been special offers in the European markets for Middle Eastern tourists so we lost a few travellers there as well.”

He also stressed that authorities should look into the economic turbulence in the Middle Eastern countries due to oil prices plummeting. “It’s not the same now in those oil rich countries because prices keep on dropping and, give or take another five years, the situation will be very different. We should act accordingly without waiting until the last minute,” Withana added.

Arrivals from the Middle East plunged 39.3% YoY to 5, 366. Arrivals from all countries in that region dropped, including Kuwait and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the number of tourists declined 68.5% and 36.1%, respectively.

Moreover arrivals from Eastern Europe also dropped 3.2% YoY to 11003. Arrivals from Russia declined for the second consecutive month this year having witnessed 17% growth YoY to 4,574.

Sri Lanka has been visited by 1.44 million tourists thus far, indicating a 17.9% YoY growth. The Tourism Authority has set a target of two million tourist arrivals this year and 2.5 million by 2016.

However, Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators President Devindre Senaratne highlighted that even though there has been no decline in numbers in tourism per se, there has been no significant growth in tourism in the country.

“Normally in Sri Lanka 58% of the revenue is earned during Winter so I will say that there is no decrease in tourism per se. However there has been no significant growth in tourism in the country. Traditionally Sri Lanka being a very much European-led market hasn’t had anyone contribute much other than the Chinese and Indians. As for arrivals from the two largest source markets, only 50% of them are really holidaying.”

Moreover, Senaratne was confident even with the drop in October the industry could achieve its target of two million tourist arrivals by the end of the year. He also added that the country’s tourism earnings were significantly growing.

“I think YoY our earnings will grow up to Rs 2.7 billion,” he said.

In the first eight months of this year earnings from tourism increased by 17.1% and Sri Lanka earned $ 1.87 billion from tourism. Sri Lanka exceeded its target of 1.5 million tourist arrivals last year and earned $ 2.206 billion from tourism.

Tourist arrivals from Western Europe increased 14.6% in October with the arrival of 36,749 tourists, compared to the 32,061 tourists arrived in the same month last year. Most of the tourist arrivals from Western Europe were from the UK, Germany and France.

Tourist arrivals from East Asia increased 21.5% as 27,516 visited the country compared to the 22,656 visited in October 2014. Arrivals from China compared to last year increased 44.4% with the arrival of 17,169 visitors while arrivals from Japan declined 3.6%.

Arrivals from South Asia increased by 14.0% as 40,714 tourists visited in October 2015. Of those arrived from South Asia, 30,574 were from India corresponding to an increase of 16.9%.