Sri Lanka aims to attract 2.3m tourists during 2022
Hopes that there would be a rebound in the traditional markets in Europe during the latter part of 2022, prompted Sri Lanka’s tourism minister Prasanna Ranatunga tell reporters at a media conference in Dubai on 3rd January, that Sri Lanka has revised its initial forecast of inbound tourist arrivals for this year, to setting a new highly ambitious target of attracting 2.3 million tourists.
“The 2.3 million tourist arrivals are a target that we want to aspire to and to generate an income of around $4.5 billion rupees (US$22.2 million),” Ranatunga was quoted as saying in one of the island’s local Daily newspaper.
This new projection of total arrivals for this year is aimed at matching that achieved in 2018 - the year where the country recorded the highest international arrivals todate: skyrocketing the Tourism chairperson Kimarli Fernando’s prediction of recording an average 100,000 arrivals per month during 2022, amounting to 1.2 million arrivals for the entire year - which she had announced just one month back, (7th December 2021 to be precise).
According to local sources, the revised figure to pre-pandemic level is based on a likelihood of increasing arrivals from India, the Middle East and former Soviet states.
Ranatunga described the 2021 figure of nearly 195,000 tourist arrivals as an achievement amid the pandemic. “We hope this trend will continue. Our expectations are that tourist arrivals will improve to 100,000-125,000 per month in the first quarter of 2022,” he was quoted as saying, going on to add that Sri Lanka would rebound to levels similar to that of 2018 courtesy of a tactical and concentrated marketing approach to attract travelers.
Based on the above, after attracting 300,000 – 375,000 tourist arrivals by end March’22, the island will thereafter need to increase the monthly inbound tourists’ flow, between April and December, to average between 222,000 – 214,000 tourist arrivals.
Hospitality Sri Lanka News
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