COLOMBO (NewsRadio); A total of 107,639 tourists have arrived in Sri Lanka in the month of February.
According to data issued by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, this is the highest number of tourists arrived in a month in Sri Lanka since February 2020.
In February 2020, just before the COVID-19 crisis impacted world travel, Sri Lanka welcomed 207,507 tourists.
International travel collapsed altogether after March 2020 and did not recover for two years due to the COVID+19 pandemic.
While international travel was gradually recovering last year, Sri Lanka was hit by a wave of protests and economic crisis.
The tourism industry recovered only in the latter part of last year after the protests and the gradually improvement of economy.
Sri Lanka welcomed 91,961 tourists in December 2022 while last month 102,545 tourists visited the country.
Accordingly, this is the first time in three years that Sri Lanka has welcomed more than 100,000 tourists in consecutive months.
The SLTDA noted that more than 26,000 tourists arrived weekly in the month of February.
The SLTDA said in February, the highest number of tourists arrived from Russia.
A total of 29,084 Russian nationals arrived in the country last month.
Meanwhile, the SLTDA added 13,714 tourists from India, 8,575 from the United Kingdom, 7,930 from Germany and 6,118 individuals from France also have arrived in Sri Lanka this month.
Meanwhile, the first batch of tourists from China in the post COVID-19 pandemic period landed at the Bandaranaike International Airport last night.
The SriLankan Airlines flight carrying 115 Chinese nationals arrived from Guangzhou.
Minister of Tourism Harin Fernando said the resumption of arrivals from China will be a massive boost to Sri Lanka’s tourism industry.
The Minister also confirmed that SriLankan Airlines is scheduled to operate nine direct weekly flights each week from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou from April.
