February tourist arrivals exceed monthly target by 2.5%

A group of tourists cross a road in Colombo Fort area 
PIC BY PRADEEP PATHIRANA

Tourism in Sri Lanka made significant strides in February, surpassing the monthly arrival target set by the authorities. 

For the entire month of February (01-28), Sri Lanka welcomed over 107,000 international visitors, exceeding the monthly tourism arrival target by about 2.5 percent. 

The provisional data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) showed that the island nation welcomed a total of 107,639 tourists in the second month of the year. 

When compared with February 2022, this was an increase by about 12 percent year-on-year (YoY).  

Accordingly, the cumulative tourist arrivals for the first two months of 2023 stood at 210,184. 
The daily arrival average for February improved to 3,844, from 3,307 in January. 

The Russian Federation emerged as the largest tourist traffic generator in February, accounting for 27 percent of the total arrivals. 

Ranking as the second was India, accounting for 13 percent of the total arrivals. In the third place was the United Kingdom, bringing in 8 percent of the total arrivals.

Sri Lanka aims to attract at least 1.55 million tourists for the whole of 2023 and generate US $ 2.8 billion in revenue. Within the first two months of the year, Sri Lank has realised 13.5 percent of the tourist arrival target for the year.