The number of tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka dropped 27.2 percent year-on-year to 108,575 in September 2019, after a 28.3 percent decline in the previous month. It was the sixth consecutive monthly fall in tourist arrivals, following attacks in the Indian Ocean island on Easter Sunday. Visitors from Europe accounted for 34 percent of all tourist arrivals and those from the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 58 percent. Among major sources of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka, the number of visitors fell the most from India (-10.5 percent to 28,917), China (-52.9 percent to 9,231), the UK (-41.5 percent to 14,226) and Australia (-21.2 percent to 8,746). Considering the first nine months of the year, the number of tourist arrivals went down 20.5 percent to 1,376 million. Since the Easter Sunday attacks, the number of foreign visitors has fallen to the lowest level since the end of the country's civil war a decade ago. Tourist Arrivals in Sri Lanka averaged 52151.42 from 1977 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 253169 in December of 2018 and a record low of 5536 in June of 1977.
Tourist Arrivals in Sri Lanka is expected to be 195000.00 by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Tourist Arrivals in Sri Lanka to stand at 130000.00 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Sri Lanka Tourist Arrivals is projected to trend around 240000.00 in 2020, according to our econometric models.