Sri Lanka Surpasses 200,000 Tourist Arrivals in January 2024

Sri Lanka’s tourism industry has proven to have a promising start in 2024 as it surpassed 200,000 arrivals in January marking the occasion as the first in four years.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Sri Lanka has suffered a drastic hit to the number of tourist arrivals to the country.

As per provisional data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), 210,352 tourists arrived in December 2023 followed by a total of 208,252 tourists having arrived in January.

The number of tourist arrivals in January 2024 is an increase of 103.1% year-on-year (YoY) compared to 102,545 tourist arrivals in January 2023.

However, the January 2024 performance is still 13% lower compared to the 238,924 in the benchmark year of 2018 before the global pandemic.

India continues to dominate with 16% as the top tourist source market for Sri Lanka with 34,399 tourists closely followed by Russia with 31,159, the United Kingdom (UK) with 16,665, Germany with 13,593 and China with 11,511.

Additionally, a wider diversity of tourists was also received in January 2024 such as arrivals from countries such as France, Poland, Australia, the USA, and the Netherlands.

The SLTDA has set an ambitious target of 2.3 million tourists and aims to generate over $ 4 billion in revenue for 2024.

It also anticipates a further boost in tourist arrivals from India, Russia and Europe until the end of the winter season or the end of February with more charter flight services and international airlines expanding the frequency of flights to Sri Lanka.