Miss Earth commends Colombo as top fastest growing tourist cities of 2015
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Ms Jamie Harrel plants a tree helped by Rohantha Athukorala.
With the arrival of Miss Earth Jamie Harrel into Sri Lanka, the country was ranked number 1 by the Master Card in the 10 fastest growing cities in the world which was commended by the Philippine beauty when she met the Sri Lanka tourism promotion bureau chief Dr. Rohantha Athukorala, a media release issued by the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) stated.
Sri Lanka crossed 714,584 visitors as at end May 2015 with May tourist guests registering a 26.1 per cent growth over last year.
Colombo was ranked first by Master Card traveller with a staggering 21 per cent surge, with Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan province following in second, Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates ranked third in terms of growth, it was stated.
This is considered a big win for Sri Lanka as the country launches a Rs. 200 million creative development strategy with the selection of the global communication partner which would be backed by a powerful Rs. 1 billion media budget and another Rs. 200 million investment for digital marketing, Mr. Athkorala was quoted as saying.
“The May performance is unique given the turnaround of Russia with a +23.4 per cent with overall Eastern Europe registering a positive growth of 25.9 per cent to 2,847 visitors whilst the top performance remains at India at 119,593 as at end May at a growth of 26.8 per cent whilst China continues to be dominant with a growth of 71.9 per cent in May and cumulative at 79,098 visitors growing by 80.2 per cent,” the release said.