Indian tourists far outnumber people from the rest of the countries visiting Sri Lanka. This has again been confirmed after the September 2012 numbers were compiled and put out by the Sri Lanka Tourism.
In September this year, a total of 71,111 tourists visited Sri Lanka. Of this, 13,888 (19.5 per cent) were Indians. The next largest group, country-wise, was from the United Kingdom, 8586. While the overall number of tourist arrivals from India didn’t change significantly compared to September 2011, (just an increase of 4.2 per cent), the numbers are increasing from the rest of the globe, as word spreads on the newer properties, and the reign of peace by the Sri Lankan government.
The statistics from January to September of this year, too, reveal that Indians are the largest group. The number of tourists from India was 1,20,530 from January to September 2011. This has marginally gone up to 122,120. Again, this constitutes the largest chunk of tourists. The next largest group was from the United Kingdom — 81,762, followed by Germany (49,037) and France (42,396). Though the percentage of Chinese tourists has increased hugely (30 per cent) compared to the previous year, their numbers are still relatively small (16,623 from January to September this year).
Sri Lanka aims to attract 1 million tourists this year. Last year, 8.55 lakh visited the country. This year, till September, as many as seven lakh have walked through the only gateway, the Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo.
That is 16 per cent more than the numbers that walked through the airport last year.
Published - October 26, 2012 04:26 pm IST
