Sri Lanka Tourist Arrivals Below Official Target in 2024

2025-01-09 02:50 By Chusnul Chotimah 1 min. read

The number of foreign tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka grew by 18.18% year-on-year to 248,592 in December 2024, following a 21.6% increase in the previous month.

Among key markets, India (21.3%) remained the top tourist source market, followed by Russia (14.2%), the UK (7.5%), Germany (5.9%), Australia (5.3%), China (4.0%), the US (3.3%), the Maldives (2.8%), France (2.5%), and Poland (2.5%).

For the full year of 2024, the number of foreign tourists soared by 38.07% year-on-year to 2,053,465, marking a new record with the highest number of annual tourist arrivals since 2018.

However, the latest numbers fell short, with a gap of 126,535 compared to the conservative target of 2.18 million visitors in 2024 and 310,010 below the optimistic projection of 2,363,475 visitors, due to the political climate, including elections and associated uncertainties.

On a monthly basis, foreign tourist arrivals jumped 35.0% in December.



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