Sri Lanka tourist arrival up 15.5-pct in October

Nov 17, 2012 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals rose 15.5 percent to 80,379 in October 2012 from a year earlier, data from the statistics office showed, with total visitors up 16.0 percent to 774,151 during the first ten months.

 Arrivals from Western Europe were hardly changed growing 1.9 percent to 24,303 in October with steep falls in some markets though Britain grew 18.3 percent to 8,767 and Germany grew 6.9 percent to 5,385.

 Arrivals from France fell 17.7 percent to 3,475, Netherlands fell 36 percent to 1,201 and Belgium fell 54.3 percent to 505.

Up to October arrivals from Western Europe was up 51.6 percent.

Visitors from Eastern Europe rose 49.6 percent to 7,048 with Russian arrivals up 18.9 percent to 2,559 and Ukrainian arrivals up 79.9 percent to 2,600.

Visitors from the Middle East were up 30.7 percent to 5,234 during the month, from a year earlier. Up to October arrivals were down 1.3 percent.

East Asian arrivals were up 35.2 percent to 11,168 with visitors up to October up 31.1. percent to 110,678.

Chinese arrivals were up 100.2 percent to 2,200 and year to date numbers were up 35.5 percent to 18,823. Visitors from Malaysia were up 88.9 percent to 2,462 and from Japan up 14.5 percent to 1,738. Taiwanese tourists increased 110 percent to 1,902.

 Visitors from Singapore fell 23.7 percent to 1,032.

South Asia, the region in which Sri Lanka is located grew only 3.7 percent to 23,538. During the 10 months, visitors grew 3.2 percent to 193,465.

Arrivals from India fell 1.5 percent to 17,654 from a year earlier. Year to date arrivals were up just 1.0 percent to 139,774. Sri Lanka tightened immigration requirement with India ending visa on arrival from 2012.

India became Sri Lanka's largest generating market after visa free facilities were given about a decade ago. Visitors from Maldives rose 20.9 percent to 3,509 and from Pakistan by 47.3 percent to 1,482.

source - www.lbo.lk