May arrivals grow by 26.1% to cross 714,584 tourists

With the arrival of Miss Earth Jamie Harrel in to Sri Lanka, the country was ranked number 1 by the Master Card in the 10 fastest growing cities in the world which was commended by the Philippine beauty when she met the Sri Lanka tourism promotion bureau chief Dr. Rohantha Athukorala in the backdrop of Sri Lanka crossing the 714,584 visitors as at end May 2015 with May tourist guests registering a 26.1% growth over last year.

  Miss Earth Jamie Harrel commending Colombo for being the number 1 growth city in the world with a positioning "One Island - Thousand Treasures". 

Sri Lanka‘s capital city of Colombo was ranked 1st by Master card traveller with a staggering 21% surge, with Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan province following in second, Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates ranked third in terms of growth; which is a big win for Sri Lanka as we launch a 200 million rupee creative development strategy with the selection of the global communication partner which will be backed by a powerful 1 billion rupee media budget and another two hundred million investment for digital marketing voiced Athkorala driving the global push.

Lima, Peru, is the wold’s ninth-fastest growing city, and the fastest growing city in South America. Houston is the fastest growing city in North America since 2009 and is the only city in the United States to register double-digit growth over that period. This accolade motivates us to work harder in unison with the key stakeholders SLITO and THASL who worked very closely in the chalking of the Sri Lanka Tourism master plan for 2016 which focusses on the top 18 markets that can bring in a demand chain of 1.8 million visitor arrivals said Athukorala.

 Miss Earth  being explained on Colombo being the fasted growing tourism city globally though 50% of the numbers coming from 5 countries which is the risk that must be corrected.

May performance is unique given that we saw the turnaround of Russia with a +23.4% with overall Eastern Europe registering a positive growth of 25.9% to 2,847 visitors whilst the top performance remain at India crossing the one hundred thousand visitors at 119,593 as at end May at a growth of 26.8% whilst China continues to be dominant with a growth of 71.9% in a May and cumulative at 79,098 visitors growing by 80.2%.

THE fastest growing countries are; Colombo, Sri Lanka 21.1%, Chengdu, China 20.7, Abu Dhabi, UAE 20.4%, Osaka, Japan 19.8%, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 18.0%, Xi An, China 16.2%, Taipei, Taiwan 14.9%, Tokyo 14.6%, Lima, Peru 13.9% and Vietnam trailing in with Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 12.9%.

The Chairman Sri Lanka Tourism went on to say that whilst the growth can be commendable the fact if the matter is that 5 countries account for 50% of the visitor arrivals which explains the risk at hand as against number one visitor arrival city of London registers 26 feeder countries accounting for fifty percent of arrivals which explains the spread of the risk explained Athukorala.