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By Charumini de Silva
Sri Lanka welcomes 8,552 visitors during the first five days of the month, driven by Russian tourists, boosting confidence among industry for a busy winter season.
The boost in arrivals was largely influenced by the resumption of the Russian flag carrier – Aeroflot as well as Russia’s largest charter airline – Azur Airline.
A total of 576,810 visitors have arrived in Sri Lanka so far, the provisional data by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) showed.
The daily average arrivals have slightly picked up to 1,710 during the first five-days of November, compared to 1,205 in October. November's first five-day arrivals also showed an uptick of 41.8% compared to 6,029 tourists in the corresponding period in October.
Russia topped the tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 1,996 tourists reflecting 23% of the total arrivals, followed by India with 1,312 tourists (15%), the UK with 779 (9%), Germany with 642 (8%), and Australia with 465 (6%).
India stood strong as the top tourist source market for Sri Lanka YTD with a cumulative number of arrivals at 96,799, followed by the UK with 73,581, Russia with 59,485, Germany with 46,031, France with 31,205, Australia with 23,292, Canada with 22,497, US 16,776, Maldives 14,158 and Ukraine 14,139.
A large industry delegation comprising over 80 travel and tourism firms yesterday began to make a fresh push for Sri Lanka’s destination marketing at the three-day World Travel Market (WTM) which began yesterday in London.
Over 100 personnel led by Tourism Minister Harin Fernando have met global travellers during the on-site promotions at the Excel World in London.
“It was a great opportunity for us to tell the world that Sri Lanka is open and ready to welcome international travellers,” Tourism Minister Harin Fernando told the Daily FT.
Sri Lanka Tourism last week officially unveiled its out-of-the-box travel packages to woo around 5,000 global soccer fans to ‘FIFA Zone’ in Negombo, during the four to five-day break between the World Cup matches from 20 November to 18 December.
The joint industry promotional effort will see the Sri Lanka Inbound Tour Operators Association (SLAITO), Travel Agents Association of Sri Lanka (TAASL), along with Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau (SLTPB) marketing three special packages starting from $ 650 including travel and accommodation.
