Saturday, 8 November 2014 00:31
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Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals rose by 13.6% in October compared to the same period in 2013 to surpass 1.2 million arrivals this year, data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) showed.
The month recorded 121,576 tourists arriving in the country compared to the 90,339 who arrived in October 2013.
In the first ten months of this year a total of 1,228,754 tourists arrived in the island recording a 21.5% increase from the 1,011,255 arrivals during the corresponding period in 2013.
Most of the tourist arrivals were from Western Europe with 387,215 tourists visiting in the first ten months of this year, recording a 13.8% increase over corresponding 2013 figures. For the month of October, 32,061 tourists - 10.1% more than October 2013 - arrived in the island.
Arrivals from North America rose by 11.4% with 57,828 visitors for the first ten months in the year while arrivals from Eastern Europe increased 31.1% with the arrival of 118,305 tourists. Most of the arrivals from Eastern Europe were from Russia with 53,157 arrivals, representing a 51.8% increase.
Tourist arrivals from the Middle East in the first ten months of the year increased by 14.7% to 80,553.
So far in the year 229,870 East Asians arrived in the island, an increase of 52.3%. Number of Chinese tourists arriving in the island rose by an impressive 138.9% to reach 106,888. In October alone tourists arrivals from China increased by 138.9% with 32,577 Chinese tourists visiting the island.
Arrivals from South Asia, the other region from where most of the tourists come, increased by 15.1% in the year with 294,075 tourists flocking to the island while arrivals from India increased 18.3% to 196,819 in the first ten months of 2014.
In the first ten months of the year, 42,679 Australians arrived in the country, an 8.2% increase from the previous year.
Sri Lanka has earned US$ 1.447 billion from tourism in the first eight months of this year, an increase of 32.1% compared to last year.
