Colombo, Feb 8 (newsin.asia) – Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals increased by 12.6 percent in January, when compared to the same period last year, with the leading markets being India, China and Britain, statistics from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority showed here Thursday.
The total number of tourists that visited the island country last month was 246,972. Tourists from India, the top generating market, soared 40 percent to 43,643 in January pushing South Asian arrivals up 32 percent to 54,815. Visitors from Pakistan rose 18.2 percent to 2,971 while Maldives was up 9.4 percent to 6,194.
China however plunged further by 22 percent to 24,819 dragging total East Asian tourists down 15 percent to 41,462.
Western European arrivals rose 14.9 percent to 83,324 with UK growing 15.1 percent to 22,410. Germany grew 20.2 percent to 14,982, France was up 14.5 percent to 12,209.
Middle East grew 25 percent to 11,199 with Saudi Arabia up 44 percent to 4,574 and Israel up 19.8 percent to 1,323.
