Sri Lanka eyes $7 billion in earnings through tourism in 2020

Colombo, Aug 24 (newsin.asia) – Sri Lanka hopes to earn an income of 7 billion US dollars through its tourism sector by 2020, Daily FT, quoting a tourism official said here Thursday.

With Sri Lanka fast gaining popularity as one of the leading tourist destinations, Director General of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), Malraj Kiriella said the country’s vision was to be recognised as the world’s finest island for memorable, authentic and diverse experiences.

Sri Lanka has launched a three-year ambitious Tourism Strategic Plan which includes several high level objectives.
Under this program, the industry hopes to employ 600,000 Sri Lankans, with plans to increase the women workforce by 10 percent.

Last year, Sri Lanka earned over $3.5 billion through its tourism while the sector also created over 150,000 direct and over 200,000 indirect jobs.

Kiriella said they expected to increase the daily spending per visitor to $210 by 2020. He said the daily spending of a tourist had increased from $90 during the war to $168 at present.

According to official statistics, over 1.2 million tourists have arrived in Sri Lanka this year with China being one of the leading markets for Sri Lanka Tourism.

Figures showed that over 160,000 Chinese tourists have visited Sri Lanka this year, while in July alone 28,445 Chinese tourists arrived in the island country.

Sri Lanka’s Tourism market has seen a positive growth since the end of the country’s civil conflict between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels which ended in May 2009.

Tourism has become the second highest earner of foreign exchange and with the launch of new hotels in the country, tourism officials said they hoped to bring in 45,000 rooms in the coming few years.

Last year over 2 million tourists arrived in Sri Lanka.