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Tourism drops by 90% in Kalpitiya 

29 Apr 2022

By Dinitha Rathnayake  Tourism in Kalpitiya has dropped by 90% due to the current situation in the country, according to tourism operators in the area. Speaking to The Morning, hotel owner Sugath de Silva said that more than 1,500 tourists typically arrive during May and June and the annual season, but the number has decreased this year. “The Sri Lankan rupee has depreciated against the US dollar, and tourists have to spend more dollars if they stay in Sri Lanka compared to last year. Some of them are regular visitors who come every year, and they compare their budget against last year. Most of them are not willing to come in the next year and changed their plans to go to other destinations like Bali, Indonesia.” According to de Silva, one set of tourists who arrived in Sri Lanka at around 8 a.m. arrived in Kalpitiya at 8 p.m., after facing fuel shortages and protests, and the next day they returned to their country, dissatisfied. He lamented: “I had to return the advance payment that I obtained in dollars, so how is it possible to bring dollars to the country?” Meanwhile, 340,924 tourists have arrived in the country so far from 1 January to 26 April 2022, while the largest number of arrivals was reported in the month of March, according to the Ministry of Tourism. According to the Ministry, 55,590 tourists arrived in April, 106,500 arrived in March, 96,507 in February, and 82,327 in January. In 2021, only 194,495 tourists arrived in the country, of which the largest number of arrivals was reported in the month of December. Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka surpassed the 100,000 per month mark in March 2022 for the first time in two years, according to the Ministry. Tourism earned Sri Lanka $ 4.4 billion and contributed 5.6% to GDP in 2018, but this dropped to just 0.8% in 2020. However, arrivals topped 100,000 in March for the first time in two years, Sri Lanka’s tourism office said. Overall tourism numbers are higher than they were in 2021, marking what many thought would be a pandemic revival.


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