Sri Lanka tourist arrivals up 17 percent
June 12th, 2012 - 7:31 pm ICT by IANSColombo, June 12 (IANS) Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals grew by 17.5 percent in May to 57,506 from a year earlier, the tourism authority said Tuesday.
The latest arrival rates were nearly twice that of April, which only recorded a nine percent increase when compared with the same period last year.
So far, total tourist arrivals for 2012 stand at 387,622, which is 18.2 percent increase over last year’s numbers up to May, the Tourism Development Authority said in a report.
The government has set a target of one million arrivals for 2012, Xinhua reported.
“Tourists from South Asia continued to form the largest component of travellers with 15,888 arrivals from India. This was followed by tourists from Western Europe, of which UK citizens formed the largest number,” the report said.
Arrivals from North America jumped by 24.3 percent and Eastern Europe also showed a strong increase of 66.3 percent to 2,367.
East Asia also saw a boost of 41 percent to 9,311 with numbers from Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan recording a significant increase when compared to last year.
Chinese tourists increased from 1,337 to 1,564, a 17 percent rise when compared with May 2011.
Tourism is a major source of income for Sri Lanka. The country’s economy had been severely hit by Tamil insurgency. The decades-long conflict ended in 2009 after the military defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels.
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Tags: 311, arrival rates, chinese tourists, conflict, east asia, eastern europe, indonesia, one million, philippines, South Asia, tamil tiger rebels, target, tiger, tourism authority, tourism development authority, tourist arrivals, travellers, uk citizens, western europe, xinhua