Can Sri Lanka Tourism achieve its goal?Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals rose 6 percent in July this year compared to the same period last year. The month recorded 217,829 tourists arriving in the country compared to the 205,482 who arrived in July 2017.Top source markets- India, China and UK continue to retain their top three positions.
India again brought in the highest number of international guests generating 14% of July’s full total traffic. China accounted for 13% of the month’s total arrivals. However, considering UK’s contribution of 12% of the full total traffic, China’s growth appears somewhat anemic and begs the question ‘Is Sri Lanka capturing its proper share of the Chinese outbound traveller?’ The Netherlands leapfrogged to 4th position displacing Australia who slipped to 7th place with a 4% contribution to last month’s total.
In the first seven (07) months of 2018, Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals rose 13.7 % to 1, 382,476 visitors-from 1,215,926 arrivals during the same period of 2017. This makes up 55.3% of the government's target of 2.5 million tourists arrivals for the whole of 2018.
To be on track to reach the projected goal for 2018, total arrivals during the balance five months in this year, will need to be 24% higher than the accumulative actual arrivals in the same period of 2017. Unless new ‘highs’ in tourist arrivals are achieved in the months between August and December 2018, the 2.5 million target may turn out to be elusive; and should that happen, critics would point out, with good reason, that the Sri Lankan tourism sector could have been hit by a lack of advertising and promotional activities.
A task force spearheaded by the country’s PM is currently considering granting visa-free entry to certain countries in Europe, West Asia and India and China. In a bid to make Sri Lanka a year-round attraction for visitors, visa-free travel to certain countries during the lean periods of October – November and March – April is also part of the plan. Efforts to make Sri Lanka a country that could be visited through-out-the-year, is a big step in the right direction. In 2017, For example, Malaysia which attracted 25.9 Million visitors in 2017 - tapping 2.1 Million tourists on average each month, including a ‘high’ of 2.4 Million visitors in December and a ‘low’ of 2.0 Million in November, has successfully eliminated the ‘seasonality’ factor.
However, offering visa-free travel to selected countries alone would not get us there and the sooner the long awaited digital advertising campaign is launched, the better would be the results..
Compiled by in2ition |
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