Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange revenue from tourism rose to $362.1 million in January, rising 34.5 percent compared to the same month last year, the central bank said, quoting tourism promotion authorities.
The revenue in January last year was $269.3 million.
The island nation witnessed $3.17 billion in revenue in 2024, with a 53.2 percent jump compared to $2.07 billion in the previous year, the data showed.
The arrivals also have picked up in the first 44 days of this year with the number of foreign visitors to Sri Lanka rose 19.9 percent to 367,804 through February 13 compared to a year ago.
The arrivals jumped 38.1 percent to 2.05 million in 2024 compared to the previous year. Sri Lanka missed its ambitious 2.3 million tourist arrival target and $5 billion revenue in 2024 .
Sri Lanka’s peak tourism has started and will go until early March.
Tourism accounted for nearly 5 percent of Sri Lanka’s economy when the sector was at its peak in 2018. Since then, it has been hit by violent Easter Sunday suicide attacks in 2019 and Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 followed by an unprecedented economic crisis.
The tourism earnings figure is estimated from a survey conducted by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority.
Sri Lanka’s imports and the merchandise trade deficit have gradually picked up as tourism earnings came in and people in the sector spent their wages and other earnings.
