Total tourist arrivals drop by nearly 50% in the first 6 months – no arrivals for three months

Friday, 03 July 2020 - 18:43

Total+tourist+arrivals+drop+by+nearly+50%25+in+the+first+6+months+%E2%80%93+no+arrivals+for+three+months

According to the data from the Sri Lanka Tourism development Authority the total number of international tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka from January to June 2020 was recorded at 507,311.

No tourist arrivals have been recorded for the months of April, May and June 2020 due to the termination of all passenger flights and ship arrivals into Sri Lanka from 18th March 2020.

Therefore, the total arrivals recorded from January to June 2019 was 1,008,449.

In comparison to January to June last year (2019), this is a decline of 49.7 % recorded for the same period in 2020.

The largest source markets recorded for the period from January to June was India, followed by the United Kingdom and Russian Federation.

Month

2019

2020

% of change

January

244,239

228,434

(6.5)

February

252,033

207,507

(17.7)

March

244,328

71,370

(70.8)

April

166,975

0

 

May

37,802

0

 

June

63,072

0

 

In comparison to the arrivals from January to June last year the highest decline of 56.7% was recorded for Africa while Asia and Pacific recorded a decline of 56.1%.

Americas recorded a decline of 54.8% whereas Middle East region recorded a decline of 50.7%.

A decline of 43.5% was recorded from Europe.

However, arrivals from countries such as Kazakhstan (85.7%), Bhutan (23.8%), Russian Federation (11.2%) and Poland (6.2%) have recorded an increase for the above period.

India, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany and China were Sri Lanka’s top five international tourist generating markets in the period from January to June this year.

India was the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 17.6 % of the total traffic received in above period. United Kingdom accounted for 10.9 % of the total traffic; while Russian Federation, Germany and China accounted for 9.7 %, 6.8 % and 5.2 % respectively. China has recorded the highest decline of 73.2%.