COLOMBO, Dec 7 (NewsIn.Asia) – Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka recorded a 16.8 percent growth in November, compared to the same period last year, with the arrival of over 195,000 tourists, statistics from the Tourism Ministry showed here Friday.
India, Britain and China remained the leading markets, generating the most number of tourist arrivals, while numbers from Germany and Australia also recorded a growth.
China which has remained in the top three in recent years, recorded nearly 19,000 arrivals last month while 247,682 Chinese tourists have arrived since January.
Overall, since January, 2.08 million tourists have arrived in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka’s Tourism Industry faced travel advisories by some countries earlier last month due to an ongoing political crisis which erupted since Oct 26, when President Maithripala Sirisena sacked his cabinet and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointed former president Mahinda Rajapaksa to the post.
Rajapaksa’s government called the travel advisories ‘unnecessary’ saying public life remained largely undisrupted by the ongoing political turbulence and tourism had not been subjected to any inconvenience.
Further, President Sirisena had briefed Sri Lankan Ambassadors and High Commissioners appointed in foreign countries to launch campaigns to attracts more tourists and FDIs in addition to fulfilling their diplomatic obligations.
