April attracts 180,426 arrivals to Sri Lanka

Attracting 180,426 visitors in April 2018, Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals rose 12.6% from the 160,249 arrivals in April 2017.

Of the total number of arrivals received in April 2018, Asia & Pacific was the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 46%. Europe accounted for 42%, Americas 9 percent, Middle East 2 percent and Africa 1 percent.

India, United Kingdom, China, Australia and Germany were Sri Lanka’s top five international tourist generating markets in April this year.

Visitors from these five countries accounted for 55% of April 2018’s total arrivals.

29,860 were from India - the largest generating market; corresponding to an increase of 13.4%, while arrivals from China totaling 17,462 visitors, declined by 11.9%. Australia accounted for 107.6% increase in arrivals with 14,023 visitors.

India, Sri Lanka’s largest source market, remains a large opportunity for growth for Sri Lanka as a tourism destination.

China, over the last few years, having grown its investment as part of the ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative has emerged as a key trading partner to Sri Lanka. Despite this, the total visitors from China during the first four months indicate a 11.9% decline over the same period in 2017.  Whether Sri Lanka is better prepared to receive the Chinese traveller remains questionable.

Fears that the protests in Kandy, which occurred in early March and garnered international attention, would result in cancellations and impact negatively on future visitor arrivals appear to be unfounded – at least for now.

Between January and end April, 888,353 tourists had visited Sri Lanka for this year. It is a 16% growth over last year when 765,202 tourists had visited the country during the same period.

Latest indications are that the earlier estimated target of 3 Million arrivals in 2018, have now been revised to 2.5 Million, generating US$ 4 billion. Over 2.1 million tourists arrived in Sri Lanka last year contributing US$ 3.9 billion of earnings to the government revenues.

Tourism accounts for nearly 5% of the US$ 87 billion economy. In fact, 11.6% of the country’s 2017 GDP and 11% of total 2017 employment can be directly or indirectly related to tourism.

As at 31^st March 2018, the total room inventory was 36,133. Classified tourist hotels (1-5 stars) had the highest inventory of 12,828 rooms.

113 projects are under construction. They will add a total 7261 new rooms in the foreseeable future. Understandably, not all these rooms will open at once, as they will roll out in stages. What it portends for the hotel industry is that a substantial supply growth rate is on the cards, annually, over the next three to four years.

As the new supply of rooms enter the market, it will be interesting to observe how the island’s hotels will cope with both occupancy and room pricing power. The long awaited Marketing campaign is due to be launched soon and while this would be welcomed by industry stakeholders, it needs to be seen to what extent it would drive more traffic to Sri Lanka. Looking ahead, unless increase for room demand is created continually, there is the likelihood of a slide in room occupancy.

HSL

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