• Surge expected in tourist spending, market diversity
• SLTDA charts growth plan amidst record arrivals

The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) expects tourist arrivals to exceed 2.3 million in 2024, generating a minimum revenue of $ 4.6 billion.

Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, SLTDA Chairman Priantha Fernando revealed that tourist arrivals in 2024 were expected to exceed the previous all-time high of 2.3 million recorded in 2018. 

Congruently, they expect revenue from tourism in 2024 to exceed $ 4.6 billion, which will also be an all-time high.

Elaborating further, he stated: “Our main market is going to be India for quite some time, followed by Russia, Germany, the UK, and China. These will be the key markets from which we will get the bulk of tourist arrivals. These five key markets are expected to account for around 62-65% of total tourist arrivals in 2024. That amounts to around 1.5 million from an anticipated 2.3 million arrivals.”

He stated that they expected the average daily spend by tourists to improve to over $ 200-205 in 2024 from the current $ 180 levels. Furthermore, he stated that the per tourist average income was expected to improve to $ 2,000 per stay.

According to statistics published by the SLTDA, as of the third week of December, the total tourist arrivals to the country had surpassed 1.4 million, with 128,047 arrivals in December itself. This represents a marked improvement from the 719,978 tourist arrivals recorded in 2022.

– By Shenal Fernando