Sri Lanka received 1.9 million tourists last year, with December recording the highest number of arrivals with 241,663 tourists since the Easter bombings in April the latest data released by the  Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) showed.

According to official data, 1,913,702 tourists had visited Sri Lanka in 2019. It is a decline of 18.0% from the 2,333,796 of tourists visited the country during the year 2018.

India, United Kingdom, China, Germany, and Australia were Sri Lanka’s top five international tourist generating markets in 2019.

In terms of monthly arrivals in 2019, January, February, March, recorded the highest growth rates compared to 2018. However, following the Easter Sunday terror attacks in April last year Sri Lanka witnessed a sharp decline in tourist arrivals.

Hence, Sri Lanka saw a 70.8% YoY decline in arrivals in May, following the attacks. However, since then, the arrivals recovered steadily in 2019, narrowing the YoY decline to 57 percent in June, 46.9 percent in July, 28.3 percent in August and 27.2 percent in September, 22.2 percent in October and 9.5 in November and 4.5% December.