June tourism earnings tad higher at US$ 170mn

• Brings 1H total to US$ 1.71bn 

Earnings from tourism trade rose in June to US$ 169.5 from US$ 164.1 million in May 2025 and US$ 151.1 million in the same month last year as arrivals continued to come in at higher than a year ago levels although fell short of the target levels.

In June 138,241 visitors came to Sri Lanka, up from 113,470 in the same month last year.

Despite the off-season, Sri Lanka managed to attract higher visitors in June but the numbers are well below what the country should have welcomed for the same period in order to meet the target.

In June, the arrivals came short by around 39,000 visitors to its target and became the sixth consecutive month of missing the target.

Sri Lanka aims at welcoming 3.0 million visitors in 2025 to earn US$ 5.0 billion in total earnings for the period.

June arrivals brought the cumulative six months arrivals to 1.17 million, up 15.6 percent from 1.01 million during the same period in 2024.

The May earnings brought the total six months earnings to US$ 1,712.6 million, up 10.0 percent from the same period last year.

Sri Lanka in 2024 saw 2.1 million visitors generating US$ 3.2 billion in earnings from the trade.

At its peak in 2018, Sri Lanka saw 2.33 million arrivals and generated US$ 4.33 million in earnings from the trade.

The industry has been calling for the deployment of the destination marketing campaign soon for the country to have a chance of meeting its target.

Meanwhile, the proposed free-visa scheme for 39 countries is yet to be implemented as it is said to be embroiled in bureaucratic delays.

The recovery in the tourism trade, normalised remittance flows and resilient exports helped Sri Lanka to generate foreign currency earnings to come out of the economic crisis in 2022, much faster.

The three sources amid the foreign currency debt standstill helped the country to also rebuild its foreign currency reserves to US$ 6.3 billion from its rock bottom levels in 2022.