August tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka halt recovery trend
Sri Lanka’s Minister of Tourism Harin Fernando announced the issuance of a 5-year multiple entry visa with 6 months stay each time, for travellers from 35 countries in a bid to boost tourism. He also said that tourism has picked up in July and August this year and they expect one million tourists to arrive during 2022 – generating in total US$ 2 billion.
In the first seven months of 2022 (Jan – July), receipts from tourism totalled a near US$ 825 million.
Travel advisory removals by UK, France, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark have prompted tour operator optimism that more tourists can be expected from these countries during the coming winter season.
As to whether these measures are sufficient to reach the targeted one million visitors total for this year is to be seen. It is a daunting challenge, considering that tourist arrivals, according to Sri Lanka Tourism, between January and August totals 496,420.
Disconcertingly, the total 37,760 arrivals in August 2022 fell well behind the 47,203 tourist who arrived the previous month (July).
If the island is to end 2022 with welcoming a total one million visitors, the balance four months of the year (Sept – Dec) will need to attract a further 500,000+ visitors. That would well require surpassing the 106,500 arrivals seen in March this year, perhaps every month from now onwards.
The interim budget presented by the President of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremasinghe necessitates the Ministry of Tourism, with the support of the Sri Lanka Tourism Board, to target the cultural / religious events that are unique to different races, and to be held in Sri Lanka in the future. Furthermore, considering the importance of this industry, the number of tourist arrivals to be increased to more than 2.5 million for 2023. Towards achieving this expectation is to focus attention on high-end tourism and to identify new places of tourist attractions including improvement of related facilities.
Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairman Priantha Fernando said they will revise the tourist arrival targets in line with the Government’s policy plans.“We accept the challenging target of 2.5 million arrivals next year, though the target was set at 1.6 million after a thorough analysis of global trends,” he added.
He also said Sri Lanka Tourism has already stepped up its efforts to boost promotions, whilst expediting processes to resolve certain bottlenecks that are critical to wooing visitors. SLTDA Chief pointed out that around 33% of the arrivals are repeat visitors, which is a good sign that Sri Lanka is in demand.
Hospitality Sri Lanka
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