Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals rose 20.3 percent year-on-year (YoY) to 90,046 in May 2014, with India,Russia and China leading the list, data released by the country’s tourism authority showed.
Arrivals during the first five months of the year were up 26.5 percent YoY to 624,178, the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) said.
Chinese arrivals, which include Hong Kong and Macau, rose 160.8 percent YoY to 7,082, while arrivalsfrom India stood at 22,981, up 28.9 percent.
From the East Asian region, Japan was up 53.3 percent to 2,281, Malaysia grew marginally 0.2 percent to 1,735 and the Philippines dropped 49.2 percent to 1,113.
Tourist arrivals from Eastern Europe was the lowest in terms of growth with a YoY growth of only 0.1 percent to 5,006 arrivals during the month under review of which 2,308 were Russians visiting the country, up 36.3 percent from a year earlier.
Ukraine was down 54.2 percent to 888 and the Czech Republic up 25.2 percent to 268.
The SLTDA data suggested that during the month in consideration, Sri Lanka witnessed an increase in arrivals from the UK and German markets as well.
Accordingly, arrivals from the UK grew 5.3 percent YoY to 6,918 while the German market showed an increase of 12.6 percent to 4,423.
From the same region, France was up 24 percent to 2,875, Switzerland up 3 percent to 711, Austria up 25.8 percent to 395 and Netherlands up 19.2 percent to 973.
The North American region, which includes Canada and the USA, showed an increase in arrivals from 4,490 in May 2013 to 4,745 during 2014 although arrivals from Canada declined 4.6 percent YoY to 2,296.
Sri Lanka Tourism follows the UN standard of defining a tourist as “a person who stays at least one night in a country and does not exceed his stay period for more than 12 months.”
Sri Lanka Travel Feneteko