Tourism earnings up 12.5% Jan-Aug

Tourism earnings during the first eight months as well as during the month of August this year reflected the same trend as arrivals to the country. According to the Central Bank, tourism earnings in August increased 4.9 per cent, while overall earnings during the first eight months increased 12.5 per cent.
Tourism earnings during the month of August this year increased 4.9 per cent to US$ 371.6 million from US$ 354.1 million in the same month last year, while earnings during the eight months increased 12.5 per cent to US$ 2.93 billion from US$ 2.6 billion a year ago.
Sri Lanka aims to attract more than 2.5 million tourists this year for foreign exchange earnings of more than US$ 4 billion, despite failing to achieve the same target during the last two years. According to available data, Sri Lanka welcomed little more than 1.58 million arrivals to the country during the first eight months, making the remaining four months challenging as it would require more than 920,000 visitors to achieve the ambitious target.
In August, the country saw more than 200,359 tourists arriving in the country, up 4.9 per cent compared to 190,928 visited during the same month last year.

The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau finally received cabinet approval for the US$ 3.5 million digital marketing campaign aimed at promoting tourism in five selected markets, UK, France, Germany, India and China.
Recently, Sri Lanka Tourism introduced an off-season programme, where the minimum room rate will be lifted from to provide discounted prices for travellers, to attract more foreign travellers to the country.
The well received CNN advertising campaign too has been planned to be extended to some other news channels.