Tourist arrivals top 1.4 mn by third week of December

Sri Lanka received over 1.4 million tourists by the end of the third week of December, the latest statistics released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) show.

The SLTDA weekly report on tourist arrivals released on Saturday (23) shows that 1,404,998 tourists had arrived in the country by December 21, 2023.

Between December 01 and 21 the country received 128,047 tourists, the report shows. 47,128 of them arrived between December 15 and 21 alone, the SLTDA data shows.

In 2022, the country only received 719,978 tourists for the whole year, SLTDA data showed.

India, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and China are among the top source markets so far this month.

Tourism is one of Sri Lanka’s top foreign revenue generators. In late November, the government waived visa fees for nationals from China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan to boost tourism in the winter season.