ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka is aiming to lure extra European vacationers to spice up the income and the numbers, Tourism and Overseas Minister Vijitha Herath mentioned amid bold vacationer arrival and income targets for this 12 months.
Sri Lanka has aimed for 3 million vacationer arrivals and USD 5 billion income for this 12 months.
Nonetheless, the island nation has obtained 1.86 million international guests as of October 26, round 62 p.c of the complete 12 months goal, whereas it has witnessed USD 2.47 billion income within the first 9 months to report lower than half of the federal government’s full 12 months goal.
Tourism Minister Herath hoped for the most effective in reaching the targets.
“We try to succeed in that concentrate on. We don’t know whether or not we are going to succeed or not,” Fireplace instructed reporters when he was requested if the 2025 targets could possibly be achieved.
India leads the listing of tourism arrivals adopted by the UK and Russia.
“We’re implementing numerous promotional applications to usher in extra vacationers from Europe,” Herath mentioned.
“Not too long ago, we’ve got applied a serious program focusing on Scandinavian nations. Additionally, we’ve got applied a number of such applications in the UK to usher in extra vacationers from Europe.”
The island nation witnessed 3.17 billion greenback income in 2024, with a 53.2 p.c leap in comparison with 2.07 billion {dollars} within the earlier 12 months, the information confirmed.
The arrivals jumped 38.1 p.c to 2.05 million in 2024 in comparison with the earlier 12 months. Sri Lanka missed its bold 2.3 million vacationer arrival goal and 5 billion greenback income aim in 2024 as nicely.
Tourism accounted for almost 5 p.c of Sri Lanka’s financial system when the sector was at its peak in 2018. Since then, it has been hit by violent Easter Sunday suicide assault in 2019 and Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 adopted by an unprecedented financial disaster. (Colombo/October 28/2025)
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