Data released this week by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority showed that aggregate tourist arrivals for the months of January to December, in 2010, had risen to 654,476, from 447,890 for the same period in 2009; a hike of 46.1%. This is a figure already very close to the government's 2011 target of 700,000 and greatly in excess of its 2010 forecasts of 600,000. 2010's numbers also, for the first time ever, overshadowed 2004's 566,202, the island's longstanding record for tourist arrivals.
2010's overall numbers were also significantly helped along by December's tourist arrivals which numbered 84,627, an increase of 48.8% over December 2009's 56,862. The December 2010 monthly arrivals were also the best ever recorded to date, being much higher than the previous best of 72,251 tourists arriving in November 2010. Data also showed that the greatest increase was from Western Europe, with 54%, and South Asia, with 50.5%. The latter was led by a 51.2% jump in inbound tourists from India which numbered 15,753 in December 2010 compared to 10,418 in December 2009, and brought the 2010 total from India to 126,882.
Meanwhile, tourist arrivals from Denmark, Finland, Belgium and Norway rose to 4,393, 1,950, 5,398 and 3,955, respectively, which is a doubling of arrivals from these Western European countries over the course of the year; while increased numbers from France (31,285), Sweden (7,096), Malaysia (13,367) and Taiwan (5,277) were a result of growth just shy of 100% over the same period. |
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