Sri Lanka tourist arrivals up only 0.5-pct in Oct 2018

Nov 08, 2018 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals during October 2018 was 153,123 in comparison to October last year, there is a growth of 0.5 percent when the arrivals were 152,429. India, China, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia were Sri Lanka’s top five international tourist generating markets in the month of October this year. India was the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 25 percent of the total traffic received in October 2018. China and United Kingdom accounted for 12 percent of the total traffic, while Germany and Australia accounted for 7 percent and 5 percent respectively. Almost 98 percent of tourists travelled by air to Sri Lanka. As at 31st October 2018, 1,885,045 tourists had visited Sri Lanka for this year. It is a 10.6 percent growth over last year when 1,704,360 tourists had visited the country during the same period. Asia and Pacific continued to be the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 47 percent of the total traffic received in October 2018. Europe accounted for 43 percent of the total traffic, America 6 percent, Middle East 3 percent and Africa 1 percent.