Colombo, Sept 10 – Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals rose 2.5 percent from a year earlier to 190,924 mostly driven by India, as explosive growth Chinese arrivals fell away, data from the state tourism office showed.
Arrivals for the 8 months to August rose 3.5 percent to 1.406 million.
Visitors from South Asia rose 17.1 percent to 42,649 with Indian arrivals up 27 percent to 31,220. Maldives fell 5 percent to 6,405, and Pakistan was down 1.2 percent to 3,133.
In the eight months to August, India tourists were up 3.6 percent to 233,120.
East Asian arrivals rose 2.4 percent to 42,412 with China arrivals down 3.7 percent to 42412. Malaysian visitors were up 27 percent to 2,311, Indonesia was up 120 percent to 1,143 and Singapore was up 14 percent to 1,783.
Chinese arrivals down 0.7 percent to 189,696 for the eight months.
Western European arrivals rose 1.6 percent to 65,949. UK, the largest generating market was up 7 percent to 21,903. German arrivals were down 10 percent to 10,993 and visitors from France was down 7 percent to 10,730.
UK visitors were up 7.8 percent to 121,378.
Tourists from Eastern Europe was down 22 percent to 5,711 with Russia down 49 percent to 1,272 and Ukraine up 20 percent to 1,399.
Middle East was also down 12.9 percent to 16,339. Saudi Arabia was down 6.2 percent to 8,761 but UAE was up 5.9 percent to 1,373
Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals has slowed in 2017 amid a partial airport closure up to April 2017. There was also a dengue epidemic which peaked in July and floods. (EconomyNext)
