BUSINESS
Sri Lanka Tourism set to rake in over Rs. 7 Bn in 2024
February 15, 2024
Average daily arrivals now increases to around 7,000 :
Industry soon to be top FOREX earner for Sri Lanka :
Sri Lanka Tourism is set to obtain over Rs. 7 billion from tourism receipts this year, said Director General Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Nalin Perera yesterday. He said that out of this around Rs. 5.18 billion will be from embarkation fees and a further Rs. 2, 087 billion will be received from the Tourism Development Levy. He said that from this 70% will go towards the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau, (SLTPB) 14% for Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) and 12% to Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism & Hotel Management (SLITHM) and the rest to the Conventions Bureau.
Sri Lanka Tourism, the second highest foreign exchange earner to the country is seeing a continuous growth in tourism arrivals when compared with Pre Pandemic levels and soon the industry will be in the top FOREX earner for Sri Lanka beating foreign remittances. Perera said that the industry kicked off 2024 with a robust increase in tourist arrivals and as at February 13, bringing over 100,000 arrivals and a total of 306,708 tourist arrivals for 2024 so far. Sri Lanka Tourism is very confident that the set target of 2.3 million tourists in 2024 or even more can be achieved with all stakeholders working towards this objective.
The average daily arrivals market which was at around 3,000 last year has now increased to around 7,000 per day and this healthy trend will continue till the end March, Nalin Perera said.
“The year 2018 was considered to be the best year for Sri Lanka Tourism. However, the current year with upwelling tourist arrivals have made the Tourism Industry experiencing increase in revenue and also creating more employment opportunities. With continuous promotional efforts by Sri Lanka Tourism and stakeholders the tourism sector has seen considerable growth in recent times. Growth in the European sector is highlighted, as they also stay for longer periods,” said Chairman SLTPB, Chalaka Gajabahu.
Sri Lanka Tourism also participated in several foreign tourism fairs this year and along with it the social media campaign and the influence rprograms that were done also helped to increase arrivals.
He also disclosed that they will launch a special Sri Lanka National App giving all tourism attractions in March with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank.
Gajabahu said that the UPI app that was launched by India to Sri Lana was a direct result of increasing Indian arrivals and it will be a major plus point to woo more Indian arrivals. He also disclosed that for the first time they are planning to launch a special Buddhist train targeting the global Buddhist community.
We are also planning to do around 50 mega international events this year, mainly tying up with local and international companies, including a historical tourism event in Sigiriya. Mega culinary travel influencer Luke Martin from Chopstick Travel who visited Sri Lanka on three previous occasions is planning to visit Sri Lanka again in the near future and his most recent vlog about Sri Lanka (in collaboration with SLTPB ) was viewed by over 35 million people globally.
The year 2024 kicked off with some important endorsements for Sri Lanka, including the Pekoe Trail which was listed as the National Geographic’s most coveted ‘’Best of the World for 2024’’and many more accolades.