Tourism sector hopeful of bouncing back from 2021 decline

COLOMBO (News 1st); Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals have declined by 61.7% from 2020 to 2021.

A total of 191,495 tourists had visited Sri Lanka last year while 507,704 arrivals were recorded in 2020.

According to statistics, most tourists who visited Sri Lanka last year were from India. They made up 29.3% of the total arrivals. with Russia and the UK being among the other countries from which most tourists had arrived.

However, official data show that tourist arrivals are now picking up.

In December last year, 89,506 tourists had visited Sri Lanka. It is a drastic increase from 393 in December 2020.

Central bank data also show that Sri Lanka had earned 82 million US dollars from tourist arrivals between January and October last year.