19% increase in tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka in June 2018146,828 tourists visited the country in June 2018, which is a 19.0% rise over the 123,351 arrivals in June 2017.
Of the total number of arrivals received in June 2018, Asia and Pacific continued to be the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 58 percent of the total traffic received during the month. Europe accounted for 28%, Americas 7%, Middle East 6% and Africa 1%.
As in the previous month, India (22%), China (14%), United Kingdom (8%), Australia (8%) and, Germany (4%) remain Sri Lanka’s top five International tourist generating markets in June this year. Australia’s (with 9,997 visitors) overhauled Germany (5,792 arrivals) to climb to 4th place. Visitors from these five countries accounted for 56% of June’s 2018’s total arrivals as against the 62% collective contribution In May 2018.
Although India led with 32,971 visitors during the month – it reflected a 21.6% steep fall over the 42,073 Indians who visited the island in the month of May this year. On a positive note however, Indian arrivals this June, surpassed the 27,836 visitors from the sub-continent in June 2017, by 18.4%.
Chinese arrivals which represented the 2nd largest generating market in June saw an 18.7% rise in ‘arrivals’ over the same month last year. While last month’s statistic for arrivals from China may present an ‘all is well’ picture, our belief is that the true situation is quite another story. A mere 1% growth in numbers - where a total 136,294 Chinese visitors have come in the 1st half of 2018 compared to 134,744 arrivals in the corresponding period last year… is a sad commentary.
Between 1st January and 30th June 2018, 1,164,647 tourists had visited the country – up 15.3 % over the same period in 2017. In other words, there were 154,203 more tourists in the first half of 2018, than in the same period in 2017.
If Sri Lanka is to meet its goal of 2.5 million ‘arrivals’ in 2018, then the 2nd half of this year must attract 229,390 more tourists over the 1,105,963 figure it achieved between July-Dec 2017. I.e., Beginning July, an average monthly 20.74% increase, during the next six months, has to be maintained.
Growing room inventory, the failure to attract high - spending tourists, a delayed nation branding campaign and reliance on word-of-mouth promo activities spearheaded by bloggers and other social media influencers is increasingly pushing Sri Lanka towards becoming a choice destination for budget travellers. In this situation, it is myopic to think that the home-sharing economy will not bludgeon and erode the regulated star-class hotels business. One only needs look no further than the macro-statistics on the year-over-year average room rates and RevPar stagnation.
HSL
|
|
|
|
