Tourism arrivals up 21.6% in June; momentum slows in 1H

By Cheranka Mendis

Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals in June rose 21.6% from a year earlier, welcoming 65,245 tourists, whilst first half performance has lost momentum in comparison to corresponding period of last year.

Data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority showed arrivals in the first half at 452,867, up 18.7% from first six months of 2011. However last year the first half saw an over 30% increase over 2010.

Given the one million tourist arrivals target for 2012, the first six months have so far netted 45%.

In June India produced most number of tourists 13,758 whilst in the first half too, the giant neighbour led with 85,426, up by 4.5%. Traditional market UK remained number two in June as well as in the first half. June saw arrivals from UK rise by 17% to 6,075 tourists increasing the first half figure to 47,975, up by 3% over 1H of last year.

In June third, fourth and fifth biggest arrivals originated from Maldives, Australia and Canada with arrivals reading 4,214 (14.5%), 3,596 (31.9%) and 3,350 (23.4%) respectively.

The number of German nationals visiting Sri Lanka rose by 23% to 3,054, making it the sixth highest contributor. In the first half German arrivals were up 25% to 32,081.

Regionally, South Asia recorded the largest number of arrivals 19,993 with an 8.5% growth over the same month of the previous year. Arrivals from Western Europe was 17,314 (+22.9%), East Asia 8,776, Eastern Europe 2,594 and North America 6,293. Tourists from Middle East were recorded as 5,915, Australasia 4,058, Africa 230 and Latin America and the Caribbean 72.

In the first half regionally, Western Europe leads the group with 172,602 with South Asia bringing in 116,717, East Asia 56,497, Eastern Europe 31,167 and North America 27,355.

When assessing percentage wise growth for June month, given a low base, the largest growth was seen from Philippines which noted a 266.4 % increase followed by Ukraine with an increase of 205.6% and Spain with 152.5%.

Individual numbers for the countries are 828 last month from Philippines, 981 from Ukraine and 616 from Spain. Negative growth was recorded from Sweden (53.7%), South Africa (75%), Singapore (4.4%) and Thailand (3.8%).