Aggressive marketing in China pays rich dividends for Lankan tourism; Chinese arrivals up 144.2% in Jan-July ’14
View(s):Chinese arrivals to Sri Lanka continued to surge for the seventh successive month this year, growing by a phenomenal 144.2 per cent to 67,408 in the January to July 2014 period, official figures showed on Monday. Total arrivals for January-July was 861,34 vs 690,589, up 24.7 per cent from last year.
According to Sri Lanka Tourism data, Chinese arrivals in the same 2013 period was 27,599 showing a tremendous growth curve in this market ever since the authorities, in the past two years, aggressively began promoting Sri Lanka for the growing number of Chinese travellers.
India, the country’s largest inbound market, recorded 133,515 arrivals for January-July 2014, up 24,5 per cent from last year while the UK was the second largest source market with a growth of 6.4 per cent to 82,815. Germany recorded 57,773 arrivals, up 21.5 per cent from last year while France rounded up in the top five markets with 49,135 arrivals, up 30.4 per cent from the 7-month period
last year.