Sept 7 (NIA) – Over 185,000 tourists arrived in Sri Lanka in August, with the total number of tourist arrivals now reaching 1,359,906 from January to August, statistics from the Tourism Ministry showed here on Wednesday.
Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals last month rose 11.8 percent from a year earlier with total visitors up 16 percent.
China once again became the number one market with the most number of travelers with over 27,000 tourists arriving in the month on August.
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So far, 190,992 Chinese tourists have arrived in Sri Lanka since January to August, a 32.2 percent increase from the same period last year.
India came in second with 24,418 tourists arriving during the month of August, a 3.7 percent increase from the same period last year.
Britain came in third with 20,475 tourists arriving in August, a 14.3 percent increase from August 2015.
From the rest of South Asia, visitors from Pakistan rose 13 percent to 3,171. Bangladesh was up 14.4 percent to 1,110 and Maldives fell 4.2 percent to 6,739.
Overall, Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka rose 11.8 percent from a year earlier to 186,288 in August 2016, with total visitors up 16 percent to 1.359 million.
Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka, hit an all-time high in July with the number of tourist arrivals exceeding 200,000 in one month alone.
In a statement, Sri Lanka’s Tourism Ministry said that with the arrival of 209,351 tourists, it was the highest number recorded in a single month since records began in the sixties.
The statement said that in terms of growth, according to country specific data, China with 163,473 visitors continued to show the highest growth in arrivals at 36.6 percent for the period January to July 2016.
The second highest growth in arrivals had been from Australia with 38,657 visitors showing a growth rate of 19.8 percent followed by the UK with 110,649 visitors at 18.7 percent.
“We are happy to see growth all round especially in emerging markets like Australia which is very encouraging. We are on course to another record breaking year,” Sri Lanka’s Tourism Minister, John Amaratunga noted.
