Can we handle so many tourists?

Tourism can be a significant source of foreign currency and contributes to economic growth of a country. Sri Lanka has seen a significant increase in tourist arrivals in the first half of 2025, exceeding even pre-pandemic levels and the aim is for 3 million tourist arrivals by end 2025 and 5 million by 2030.  Although it’s good to have targets to work on, large influx of tourists will be challenging particularly with the current infrastructure and resources in the country.   We witnessed this during the exposition of the sacred tooth relic in Kandy and State Vesak festival in Nuwara-Eliya this year.

Sri Lanka was also named as the most beautiful island to visit recently by travel website - Big Travel 7. When you are No. 1 you need to maintain standards.  Therefore Sri Lanka needs to target high-quality tourists rather than concentrating on the quantity.  Over crowding into a destination that cannot manage the sustainability will create negative consequences, environment degradation, damage to cultural sites, reduces the quality of  life of residents and most of all  it will lead to long queues and will reduce the enjoyment of attractions.

In order to maintain the country’s tourism image and branding done by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, proper coordination and management strategies to evenly distribute the tourists should be in place at tourism hot spots around the country, failing which  tourists will skip Sri Lanka to other destinations.

Vinodini Jayawardena