Sri Lanka targets 300,000 Chinese tourists this year to partially offset downturn in European arrivals

Buddhika Hewawasam

PIC BY NISAL BADUGE

Sri Lanka is banking heavily on the Asian region, particularly China, to buffer a massive hit to the European tourist arrivals stemming from the ongoing geopolitical crisis in the Middle East. 

Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Chairman Buddhika Hewawasam expects the shifting dynamics to trigger a 30 to 40 percent drop in European travellers. However, a targeted strategy to attract 300,000 Chinese visitors this year is expected to help the island nation catch up and maintain its growth momentum.

Speaking at a digital payment launch event in Colombo yesterday, Hewawasam noted that despite the current global uncertainties, the Chinese tourist numbers are growing immensely.

“Year-on-year, it’s a 30 percent growth that we are expecting right now. Last year, about 132,000 Chinese tourists came to Sri Lanka. This year, we are expecting about 300,000 tourists to be coming in,” he stated. 

He emphasised that the country’s marketing strategies are pivoting rapidly to capitalise on this regional shift. 

“If the Asian market is growing, another 30 percent we can catch up. So, our promotional plan and marketing is based on that and we are very much focused on that aspect,” he added.

The shift in the source market dynamics and anticipated drop in Western arrivals are already reflected in the national data. 

Sri Lanka recorded 136,089 tourist arrivals during the first 22 days of March 2026. Compared to the 164,690 arrivals recorded during the exact same 22-day period in March 2025, this represents a contraction of approximately 17.3 percent. The decline poses a significant challenge to the industry’s revised arrival target of 200,000 for the month of March. To achieve the milestone, the country would need to attract nearly 64,000 tourists in the remaining nine days of the month, requiring the current daily average of 6,186 arrivals to surge to over 7,100 per day.

An analysis of the daily average arrivals exposes the contrasting fortunes between the Western and Asian source markets that are driving this overall contraction. A comparison of the daily average arrivals during the first 22 days of March 2026 against the daily averages for the entire month of March 2025 underscores a sharp contraction in traditional European strongholds. 

The daily average for Russian tourists plummeted to 542 arrivals per day in March 2026, compared to an average of 941 arrivals per day in March 2025. Similarly, the daily average for tourists from the United Kingdom dropped from 724 in March 2025 to 572 in the corresponding period this year, while the daily average of German tourists fell from 578 to 495. Conversely, the regional Asian markets have shown robust expansion, working to cushion the blow. China has advanced to become the fourth largest source market for March 2026, up from the sixth position it held in March 2025. 

The daily average of Chinese tourists surged to 441 during the first 22 days of March 2026, up significantly from the daily average of 358 recorded in March 2025. India also maintained its position as the top source market, with its daily average rising to 1,605 arrivals, compared to 1,264 during March of the previous year.

To maximise the economic benefit of these arriving Asian tourists, Hewawasam highlighted that bridging the digital payment gap by introducing globally accepted platforms such as Weixin Pay is vital, to address the unequal distribution of tourism revenue. 

“Right now, we don’t have any QR acceptance or QR-based smaller vendors in the country. The money, which is being coming through tourism, will only reach the hotels or larger vendors but not the smaller vendors,” Hewawasam explained. 

He added that enabling the smaller vendors like vegetable sellers, bakery shops and craftspeople in the tourism zones to accept digital payments would empower the rural communities and help curb the industry’s high revenue leakage. 

“The leakage of tourism is over 30 percent in Sri Lanka. So, US $ 100, which is being reaching Sri Lanka, US $ 30 is going out of the country,” he noted, emphasising that encouraging the tourists to purchase directly from the local communities using familiar digital platforms would retain more foreign exchange within the domestic economy. (NF)