Over 19,000 tourists arrived in Sri Lanka in first two weeks of November

Sri Lanka Tourism recorded 19,222 tourist arrivals between Nov. 01 and 14, and since the country opened its borders for Tourism, a total of 80,310 tourists had arrived in the country, Minister of Tourism Prasanna Ranatunga said recently.

He made these remarks at the inaugural event of Sri Lanka Tourism Expo 2021 organized by the Colombo University at One Galle Face mall. It was the first Tourism exhibition held in the country after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Leading hotels and travel firms in the country displayed their products and services in about 50 exhibition stalls at Sri Lanka Tourism Expo 2021.

Minister Ranatunga said,” Sri Lanka Tourism cannot recover only by providing extended moratoria for tourism industry stakeholders in respect of loans and leases. More importantly, we have to ensure that Sri Lanka is safe for visitors with very low infection rates, higher rates of vaccine doses administered per 100 people and greater compliance with globally accepted health guidelines and protocols across the industry.”

“With the collapse of the industry, many stakeholders have left it and found work elsewhere. So we need to take measures to attract more tourists and rebound the industry to pre-pandemic levels in order to bring them back to the industry. In this context, exhibitions of this nature are very useful,” he said.

According to the Ministry of Tourism, tourists that visited Sri Lanka in the said period were from India, Pakistan, the Maldives, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, the United States of America, Canada and Russia among other countries.