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Sri Lanka eyes South Asian tourists


Published : 27 Aug 2022 09:18 PM | Updated : 27 Aug 2022 09:18 PM

Sri Lanka is eyeing the South Asian tourists, including Bangladeshis, to give a boost to its tourism sector, sources said.

Sri Lanka, heavily plagued by the corona virus in 2020 and 2021, has recently announced the year 2022 as ‘Visit Sri Lanka Year,’ and authorities are prioritizing the recovery of tourism as the country sinks deeper into its worst economic crisis since independence.

Tourism has long been a key source of capital for Sri Lanka. In 2018 the tourism sector accounted for $4.4 billion — 5.6 percent of the country’s GDP. But this dropped to just 0.8 percent in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic put the brakes on global travel. Tourism of the island has long been a key source of capital for Sri Lanka. In 2018 the tourism sector accounted for $4.4 billion — 5.6 percent of the country’s Gross Domestics Product (GDP). After India and the Maldives, Bangladeshi tourists hold the third position in Sri Lanka among the South Asian countries.  

A total of 6031 Indians visited Sri Lanka, a total of 1,207 Maldives and a total of 176 Bangladeshis visited Sri Lanka during the period of July, 2022, according to statistics prepared by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority

Bangladesh is expected to become the 24th largest economy in the world by 2030 despite a rise in poverty, unemployment and income losses because of the severe impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a government report. "By 2041, Bangladesh will also become a digital economy," said the National Human Development Report (NHDR) prepared by the Economic Relations Division (ERD).

“As Sri Lanka offers on-arrival visas to Bangladeshi travelers, our well-off citizens also like to visit the   island country” said a local tour operator.

In 2017, a total of 15,510 Bangladeshis visited Sri Lanka, a total of 10,487 visited in 2018, a total of 8,261 Bangladeshis in 2019, a total of 1,986 Bangladeshis in 2022, a total of 1,496 Bangladeshis and during January-July period, a total of 1721 Bangladeshis visited the island, according to statistics prepared by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority

Meanwhile, the ongoing economic crisis coupled with Ukraine–Russia war and China’s zero-COVID policy has put the Sri Lanka tourism sector in jeopardy. Sri Lanka will face an uphill task in restoring a once thriving sector, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The challenges, amidst the ongoing economic crisis which has seen inflation soar to 50%, daily power cuts and shortages of basics such as fuel, food, and medicine, will undoubtedly make the revival of the country’s tourism industry extremely challenging.

The Sri Lankan tourism accounted for more than 12 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2019 and the third-largest source of foreign exchange reserves – behind worker remittances and the apparel industry.

According to Global Data, international arrivals in Sri Lanka more than quadrupled from 448,000 to 1.9 million between 2009 and 2019, reaching a peak of 2.3 million inbound visitors in 2018. Concurrently, inbound tourism spending increased rapidly from $394.4 million in 2009 to $3.6 billion in 2019, with a high of $4.4 billion in 2018. Tourism-dependent Sri Lanka suffered its first major setback with the Easter bombings in 2019. This led to the collapse of inbound tourism flows as international arrivals declined by 18% year-on-year (YoY) and tourist expenditure fell by 17.7% YoY in that year.