Tourist arrivals during Sept. 1-15 hit almost 15k

Tourist arrivals for the first 15 days of September totaled 14,833, bringing the arrivals for the January 1 to September 15 period to 511,263.

An analysis of the daily arrival numbers, as shared by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, showed that the average arrival per day for the month is 988.

The weekly arrivals for the month of September are lower than that of August 2022. For the first two weeks of September, an average of 7,416 tourists arrived in the country, whereas in August, the average arrival was about 9,440 per week.

The top three tourist traffic-generating market for Sri Lanka during September 1-15 were India (3,067), the United Kingdom (1,527) and Australia (1,137).

Tourist arrivals are expected to increase for the upcoming winter season as tourist source markets have relaxed the travel advisories that were issued against Sri Lanka, due to the political and economic crisis.

International travel and tour companies have resumed promoting destination Sri Lanka once again and the local tourism sector is expected to reap the benefits of this move from the latter part of 2022.