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Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka rapidly declined in June, showing the severe economic impact of the Easter bombings on the Indian Ocean island nation.
The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority said on Wednesday there were 63,072 tourist visits to Sri Lanka last month, a drop of 57 per cent compared with June 2018, when the number was 1,46,828.
The highest numbers were from India, followed by Australia, the UK and China. Almost 97 per cent of tourists arrived by air.
Arrivals for the first six months of the year were 1,008,449, a decline of 13.4 per cent compared with 2018, when 1,164,647 visitors arrived.
Seven suicide bombers struck two Catholic and one Protestant church and three luxury hotels on April 21. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were carried out by a local radicalised Muslim group known as the National Thowheed Jammath.
The blasts killed more than 250 people, including 45 foreigners, mainly from China, India, the US and the UK.
Tourism was Sri Lanka’s third largest foreign currency earner last year, after remittances and textile and garment exports.
Tourism accounts for 4.9 per cent of Sri Lanka’s GDP. Last year, 2.3 million tourists visited, generating $4.4 billion, a nearly 12 per cent jump from 2017. Around half a million Sri Lankans directly depend on tourism, while 2 million depend on it indirectly.
The government expected income of $5 billion from tourism this year, but after the blast, it said revenue would decline to $3.7 billion.
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