63,339 Tourists arrived last month registering a continuous growth

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63,339 Tourists arrived last month registering a continuous growth


Saturday, 14 August 2010

Monthly statistics indicate that tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka continue to surge since the beginning of this year. 63,339 tourists arrived in the month of July, which is a 50% increase compared to the same period last year, despite July being the off-season. This is also an increase of 18,609 from the June arrival figure which registered arrivals as 44,739. The total number of tourists arrived this year up to end of July amounted to 341,991 registering a 48,.7% increase over the corresponding period last year.
It is believed the removal of travel advisory by the British Government would help increase tourist arrivals in the forthcoming months, as increase of arrivals in the month of July has largely been from the Western European countries. Arrivals from the Western European countries in July amounted to 28,738. Of this figure, arrivals from U.K. amounted to 11,734 registering a 50% increase.The number of visitors from Germany, a traditional market, went up by 33 % to 3,540 and visitors from France and Netherland doubled amounting to 3,738 and 2,697 respectively. .Meanwhile arrivals from the Middle East, where promotions have been intensified due to its potential for high-end tourism rose by 68 percent to 6,975. The number arrivals from South Asia, which has also emerged as a big market for Sri Lanka, rose 15 percent to 12,736 of which 9,058 arrivals were from India, registering a 35% increase from that country. (niz).