Sri Lanka welcomed 168,625 tourists in October, up 2.1 percent compared to the same month last year, recording its first year-on-year monthly growth since May and ending a four-month losing streak, as per the data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA).
The uptick follows successive declines of 9.9 percent in June, 1.7 percent in July, 3.3 percent in August and a marginal 0.3 percent in September, with the arrivals in the third week of October climbing 14.5 percent to 42,739.
However, the recovery was driven almost entirely by India, which sent 62,211 holidaymakers, up 29.3 percent from 48,113, lifting its share of total arrivals to 36.9 percent, from 29.1 percent.
The 14,098 additional Indian arrivals were more than four times the overall gain of 3,432, while the arrivals from all other markets combined contracted 9.1 percent to 106,414.
Among the remaining top 10 markets, only Australia and China grew, by 7.7 percent and 3.0 percent, respectively. Russia, the island’s third-largest source market last October, slid to sixth as the arrivals plunged 41.3 percent to 6,750, while Germany fell 17.7 percent and Bangladesh 18.0 percent.
Meanwhile, the cumulative arrivals for the first 10 months stood at 1,862,304, down 1.5 percent compared to the same period last year, weighed down by the steep falls of 19.7 percent in March and 22.3 percent in April amid the West Asia war. India led with 499,625 arrivals, up 18.0 percent, followed by the United Kingdom (173,129, down 1.0 percent), China (123,740, up 10.0 percent), Germany (105,305, down 9.8 percent) and Australia (95,498, up 12.0 percent).
Among the top 20 markets, Japan was the fastest-growing after India, rising 16.8 percent to 36,266, followed by Pakistan, Australia, Israel and the Maldives, all up more than 10 percent.
Russia slipped from third to sixth as the arrivals fell 32.8 percent to 89,741, while Bangladesh, Poland, the Netherlands and Spain each declined by more than 20 percent.
The outlook for the peak winter season appears promising as air connectivity expands.
British Airways resumed thrice-weekly London Gatwick-Colombo flights on October 24 after a decade-long absence, complementing Jetstar’s thrice-weekly Melbourne-Colombo service launched in August and strengthening links to two of the island’s top five markets.
Azur Air resumed Russian charter flights to Mattala on November 2, after a one-year break, joining Belavia, Kazakhstan’s SCAT Airlines and Uzbekistan’s Centrum Air at the southern airport, while S7 Airlines and French Bee are due to commence services in December.
Even so, reaching the SLTDA’s revised conservative scenario of 2,500,220 arrivals would require 637,916 tourists in November and December, 35.2 percent more than 471,834 recorded in the same two months last year, while its lower-end scenario of 2,377,370 would need a growth of 9.2 percent.
