Tourism earnings eclipse US$ 3bn in 2024

• Highest since 2019 

Tourist arrivals and earnings saw a solid recovery last year on the back of a relative political stability, economic recovery, destination marketing and Sri Lanka featuring among the top travel destinations globally due to its diverse and differentiated offerings for globetrotters.

According to the latest data, Sri Lanka saw 248,592 visitors in December 2024, helping to generate US$ 362.1 million for the month. The December earnings were up substantially from the US$ 269.3 million generated in the same month in 2023 and US$ 272.9 million in November, reflecting the solid start to the winter arrivals season.
The December figures brought the full year arrivals to 2,053,465, which was 38.1 percent higher from the 1,487,303 arrivals in 2023.

These higher arrivals made it possible for the country to generate cumulative earnings of US$ 3,168.6 million, up by a solid 53.2 percent from 2023 earnings.    

While the arrivals were somewhat off from the expected 2.3 million for the year, earnings were within the US$ 3.0 to US$ 3.5 billion projected for 2024.

The last time Sri Lanka recorded higher figures from the industry was back in 2019 when the arrivals were 1.91 million generating earnings of US$ 3.6 billion. The highest recorded was in 2018 with arrivals at 2.33 million earning US$ 4.4 billion.  Since then the industry failed to repeat or better its performance due to back-to-back crises from the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019 to two years of pandemic which closed majority of borders globally to the resulting economic crisis in Sri Lanka which precipitated into a full blown social and political crisis, which extended the industry’s recovery by another two years.

In 2024 too, the industry was met with some mini-hiccups such as the sudden change to the visa process in April and the threats of possible terrorist attacks later in the year in the country’s Eastern coast, which in fact didn’t weigh on the sector’s progress.   

The authorities expect to generate US$ 5.0 billion in 2025 from an expected 3.0 million arrivals, which is very much within reach in the absence of any exogenous factors derailing the ongoing progress of the industry.