Sri Lanka's tourism industry is never short on noise
At any given moment, the conversation is dominated by tourist arrival numbers where optimism rises (and falls), with headlines screaming “All-time high of 277,327 visitors in January 2026”, “Sri Lanka welcomes 124,460 tourist arrivals in first 12 days of February 2026” and so on. Everyone’s overly enthusiastic and the caravan moves on…
We have had many years of judging the performance of Ministers of Tourism and their cohorts by the increase in international arrivals while they hold office. As a measure it has the advantage of being a simple indicator and of being inexpensive to collect; often immigration does it on behalf of tourism and from a national government perspective foreign exchange earnings may be of primary importance.
Before going any further, let’s recollect the journey that Sri Lanka’s tourism sector has been on after the country ended one of the world's longest running civil wars in May 2009. Fast forward now, to that fateful Easter day bombing in 2019, followed thereafter by COVID – which not only ruined any growth, but also forced a full reset. Borders closed. Connectivity collapsed. Direct routes fell. Demand evaporated.
More was to come. From early 2022 to late 2024, Sri Lanka went through an intermittent, uncertain, but ultimately momentous change in its political leadership. In early 2022, in response to a severe economic crisis, massive protests forced the then president from office. His successor, selected by Parliament, soon thereafter, confirmed that the country was "bankrupt" due to an unprecedented foreign exchange crisis. This was no mere transition…it was a gigantic rupture. What followed from 2022 onward was not business as usual, but a rebuilding phase - that received a set-back when cyclone ‘Ditwah’ wrecked havoc across the island, a few months ago.
In a nutshell, Sri Lanka’s Tourism industry tells the story of a sector that after surviving systemic shocks; reconnected itself to the world, absorbed new capacity, attracted renewed interest and visitor growth, and is now struggling with the growing pains of success. That is transition. These developments point to a tourism sector moving beyond recovery and into a period of structural adjustment. The challenge ahead is not to pursue volume for its own sake but to craft a careful transition.
The real test though, is whether we posses acumen and strategic maturity plus the ability to make good judgments’ and take swift decisions to guide the industry wisely. Whilst Success in tourism does not depend solely on the minister, tourism as a major economic driver requires a dedicated minister to champion the sector and manage complex regulatory environments.
Sri Lanka needs tourists who spend more money; rather than just more people through the airport gates.
We focus on numbers of arrivals. We celebrate record-breaking years or lament “quality erosion” judged on one or two metrics, whilst been aware that tourism responds to disruptions, incentives, prices, connectivity, demographics and infrastructure. If we are serious about steering it toward quality, we must first learn to read it properly and regularly. This is where the conversation about ‘quality’ must mature. Quality is not achieved by simply reducing numbers or raising prices. It is about product diversification. It is about connectivity that favours strategic markets rather than pure volume. It is about building ‘year-round’ demand so that hotels and operators in hospitality don’t face seasonal business decline.
There is also a narrative of waning spend. This often rests on inflation-adjusted arguments, indicating that real spend per tourist has decreased, signaling a downward shift in spending patterns. Bottomline: Sri Lanka Tourism is working hard to attract more tourists who spend less.
Other countries in Asia are light-years ahead of us in managing their tourist industries both coherently and sensibly. They have identified the role which they wish to see their tourist industry play, and they have related it to other national objectives. They have been able to harness the energies and wealth which a growing tourist industry generates to secure desirable objectives, instead of allowing those energies to destroy the destinations and the wealth to slip out of the country.
Shafeek Wahab - Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Motivational Speaker, Mystery Guest Auditor, Ex-Hotelier
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