roadBlockAd
brand logo
logo

Increasing tourist arrivals: Target of over 1 million in 2022

15 Jan 2022

By Uwin Lugoda The recent increase in tourist arrivals has the Sri Lankan tourism industry optimistic about reaching its goal of over one million arrivals for 2022. Speaking to The Sunday Morning, several tourism stakeholders claimed that the recent arrival numbers were a positive sign for the industry. According to these stakeholders, the industry estimates over a million tourists to enter the country in 2022, a drastic increase from both 2020 and 2021. These estimates were backed by Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Director General Dhammika Wijesinghe, who stated that according to their research projections, the target for 2022 was 1.1 million arrivals.  She explained that in January alone, their expert had made projections of around 80,000 tourists entering the country. However, Wijesinghe stated that the arrival numbers for both January and 2022 may be higher considering that the first 10 days of the year attracted a total of 29,420 tourists to Sri Lanka. She stated that if this current trend continued, the country could expect around 92,000 to 95,000 arrivals this month and around 1.3 million arrivals for the year. “By 10 January, we had recorded 29,420 arrivals to Sri Lanka. If we keep up this trend, we can expect more arrivals for January than we estimated. The data has also shown that our biggest markets currently are Russia, India, the UK, Germany, France, Australia, and China,” said Wijesinghe. According to SLTDA data, a total of 194,495 tourists visited Sri Lanka in 2021, a drop of 61.7% from 507,704 in 2020. Most of these tourists were attributed to those coming from the Indian market, which accounted for 29.3% of arrivals, while Russia accounted for 12.1% and the UK 9.5%. The data showcased that the arrivals picked up in December 2021, with 89,506 tourists having visited Sri Lanka, which was an increase from the 393 arrivals in December 2020. Furthermore, data from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) showed that the country earned $82 million between January and October last year. Industry predictions Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) Chairman Thilak Weerasinghe speaking to The Sunday Morning also agreed with the SLTDA’s estimate, predicting that the country would attract around a million tourists in 2022 and go back to the 2018 arrival numbers by 2025. However, he explained that all this would depend on the pandemic situation and the lockdown situations in both Sri Lanka and its tourism markets. He stated that the country’s tourism numbers began to pick up once the new guidelines allowed vaccinated tourists to freely travel around the country. Weerasinghe stated that another positive aspect leading to these increased numbers was the opening of Central Asian markets, which introduced Sri Lanka tourism to new markets such as Kazakhstan. He explained that these tourists from Kazakhstan had been frequenting the island in the last few weeks for its beaches, which led up to five flights a week from Kazakhstan to Colombo. “Our focus was the Russian market, but now alongside the Russian tourists, we see tourists coming from Central Asia as well, which is a new market for us. Tourists from places like Kazakhstan come here for the beaches and are very easy to manage since they mostly stay in one resort. We saw around five flights a week from Kazakhstan to Colombo up until 5 January when they faced some internal issues in that country,” said Weerasinghe. SLTDA data showcased that around 2,462 tourists from Kazakhstan arrived in Sri Lanka in December 2021, bringing it within Sri Lanka’s top 10 tourism markets for that month. It also explained that Kazakhstan was the only country in the December top 10 markets which did not make the list in the previous months of the year. Altogether, Kazakhstan accounted for 5,754 arrivals in 2021, a 146.6% increase from 2,333 in 2020. Despite the potential new markets, Weerasinghe stated that Sri Lanka’s traditional markets of Europe and Australia were yet to perform to their full capacity, given their respective Covid situations and restrictions. Marketing Sri Lanka Moreover, he stated that while Sri Lanka’s tourism product is ready, it is yet to be marketed properly. “As a product, Sri Lanka is ready. Our tour operators and hoteliers have somewhat managed to adapt to the new system, with things like our health guidelines. The tourists coming to the country are also happy with how we have managed the tourism product here. But, the only issue is that when it comes to marketing this product, we are a little uncertain what we are going to do.” Weerasinghe stated that Sri Lanka tourism needed to be careful when positioning itself as a destination, and needs to move away from only promoting the culture, nature, and wildlife. Instead, he suggested that the industry needed to understand the differences in each market and cater to those.  “If we look at the landlocked countries, we need to understand why they are travelling, where they are going, and how we can market ourselves to them, because these countries are different from the European market, which has also changed from beachgoers to adventure tourists seeking to experience their destination.” He stated that the industry needed to have a specialised team of tour operators to market Sri Lanka as a destination for these new travellers, to increase the value of the country’s tourism product. He added that the industry should also look into other issues such as transport for the tourists and tourism products like safaris which suffer from overcapacity issues. Weerasinghe stated that they have always said that Sri Lanka’s tourism product is ready, and questioned when the local industry is going to sell it. He stated that to do this, both the Government and stakeholders need to plan and manage the industry together. The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) President M. Shanthikumar was also optimistic that the target of one million arrivals in 2022 was achievable, if the Covid situations in other countries did not worsen. He explained that hotels were back to functioning at full capacity and had seen an increase in interest from tourists.


More News..