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.
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.
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