Tourist arrivals up 20% in June

Reuters : Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals gained 19.9 percent in June from a year earlier as the island nation increasingly attracts more foreign visitors and tourism-related investment since the end of its 25-year civil war.

Arrivals have risen every month on a year-on-year basis since the end of the war in May 2009.

The number of visitors in June hit 53,636 from 44,730 a year earlier and arrivals in the first five months of 2011 have jumped 36.9 percent to 381,538. Arrivals hit a record high of 654,476 in 2010 with a 46.1      percent year-on-year rise and broke the previous record of 566,202 set in 2004, when a peace accord between the government and the separatist Tamil Tigers was in place.

Tourist arrivals are forecast to grow 20 percent to a record of more than 780,000 this year with the industry already securing $1.2 billion in investment.

Sri Lanka also expects $1.5 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) through its first tourist city project, near the capital, Colombo, that includes four five-star hotels, the government said last week.      Tourism revenue rose 54.5 percent in first five months of this year to $318.1 million compared to the corresponding period last year after jumping 64.8 percent year-on-year to a record $575.9 million in 2010, the Central Bank’s latest data showed.

Sri Lanka aims to attract $2.7 billion in investment to upgrade its post-war tourism capacity, with the goal of growing     revenue to $2.5 billion by 2016.

The hotel and travel index on the Colombo Stock Exchange has risen nearly fourfold since the end of the war.

Tourism is one of the main foreign exchange earners for Sri Lanka’s $50 billion economy along with remittances from abroad, garments and tea.  Sri Lanka, through its 2011 budget, has imposed a tax of $20 per room per night on five-star hotels if they fail to charge a minimum rate of $125.