Sri Lanka attracts 174,608 tourists in April 2025
A total 174,608 visitors arrived to Sri Lanka in April 2025. This was up 17.3% over April 2024’s 148,867 tourists who visited the island last year, but was still below 2018 April’s record 189,429 arrivals by 3.2%. 2018 was also the year Sri Lanka reached an all-time high of welcoming a total 2.33 million tourists.
The Top Ten (10) countries / source markets in April 2025 were visitors from India, who led with 38,744 arrivals (22%), followed by the United Kingdom with 17,348 (10%), whilst the Russian Federation with 13,525 (8%) slotted in at 3rd place. Germany with 11,654 (7%) occupied the 4th position and Australia’s 10744 (6%) came in at 5th place. China slipped to 6th place producing 8,667 (5%) tourists with 8,276 (5%) from France, Bangladeshis totaling 5,428 (3%), Netherland’s 4,476 (3%) and arrivals from the US totaling 4,202 (2%) occupying the 7th to 10th ranking, in that order. Bangladesh emerged as the fastest-growing market, with over 121% YoY growth in arrivals in this period. Among the top 10 source markets, arrivals from China declined the most. The above - listed Top Ten countries produced 70% of the country’s total actual arrivals.
Accumulatively, (January to April 2025), the Top Five (5) visitors to Sri Lanka came from India (157,059), the Russian Federation (107,093), the United Kingdom (87,053), Germany (61,655) and France (51,642).
The total arrivals for the period 1st January to 30th April 2025 stood at 896,844 visitors - up almost 01%, when compared with the total arrivals in the first four months of 2018. Despite the positive momentum, Sri Lanka faces a steep climb to meet its annual target of three million tourists. The country must attract an additional 2.1 million visitors over the remaining eight months. The April period also marks the close of Sri Lanka’s traditional winter tourism season. Historically, arrivals dip during the May-September lean season.
Sri Lanka’ tourism focus on achieving the ambitious arrival and revenue targets it has set itself to achieve in 2025, will require heightened strategic infrastructure development, diversifying offerings and effective marketing to capture a larger tourist base that includes an increase in the high-spenders.
Hospitality Sri Lanka
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