Tourist arrival figures: Indians top the list

Indian tourists far outnumber those from other countries visiting Sri Lanka. This has again been confirmed after the September 2012 numbers were compiled and put out by Sri Lanka Tourism.

In September, a total of 71,111 tourists visited Sri Lanka. Of this, 13,888 (19.5 percent) were Indians. The next largest group, country-wise, was from the United Kingdom, 8,586. While the overall number of tourist arrivals from India did not change significantly compared to September 2011 (just an increase of 4.2 percent), the numbers are increasing from other parts of the world, as word spreads about Sri Lanka's newer properties and the reign of peace.

The statistics from January to September this year too reveals that Indians are the largest group.

The number of Indian tourists arriving in Sri Lanka was 120,530 from January to September 2011. This has marginally gone up to 122,120. Again, this constitutes the largest chunk of tourists visiting Sri Lanka. The next largest group was from the United Kingdom - 81,762, followed by Germany (49,037) and France (42,396). Though the percentage of Chinese tourists arriving in Sri Lanka has increased hugely (30 percent) compared to the previous year, their numbers are still relatively small (16,623) from January to September 2012. Sri Lanka aims to attract one million tourists this year.

Last year, 855,000 tourists visited the country.

This year, till end-September, about 700,000 people have walked through the only gateway, the Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo.

That is 16 percent more than the numbers that walked through the airport last year.

- The Hindu