While Sri Lanka suffered a setback in tourist arrivals after the Easter Sunday attacks tourist arrivals are seen picking up month-on-month. The numbers are reversing on a positive note with arrivals up by 80% in July from June, says Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Chairman, Kishu Gomes.

“In May our numbers went down to 37,000 tourists that was a daily average of 1260. But in June we managed to record a month on month growth of almost 67%. Our numbers went up to 63,000 in June and in July with the actual numbers we recorded up to 25th and the forecast we have done for the rest of the month, the realistic number is going to be 117,000 so from June to July the percentage increase would be over 80%. So by all means it is a good rate of recovery and if you compare our rate of recovery with the recoveries that have been made by some of the other destinations following similar calamities we can all be happy that our progress is much better than the progress the other countries have been able to achieve,” Gomes said.

“We believe at this rate the year end figure will be between 1.9 million to 2 million where the drop will be less than 30%,” he added.