Holidaymakers to Sri Lanka fell 12.0 percent for the 12 months to October, the Sri Lanka Tourist Board said last, amidst soaring violence in the island’s North and East.
Sri Lanka greeted 38,815 visitors in October, the largest monthly decline since December 2005.
However, cumulative arrivals from Jan to Oct rose 7.4 percent to 482,787.
But there is a shift in the mix of visitors: Indians are the single largest visitor group while numbers of relatively high-spending European visitors are falling.
The traditional key markets of Britain and Germany, which attracts the usual sun 'n surf discount packages, continued to falter, as sun worshippers cancelled their holidays.
Arrivals from Britain fell 30.9 percent to 5,837, while German fell 14.8 percent to 4,218, for the 12 months to October 2006.
Amid rising violence, the Australian government has warned its citizens to reconsider travel plans to Sri Lanka. The US has warned there could be attacks in Colombo soon.
"We believe arrivals are likely to moderate further during the coming winter season as violence in the North and East continues to attract adverse publicity," C T Smith Stockbrokers said in a report this week.
Downgrading expected 2006 total arrivals by 4.9 percent to 570,102 visitors, the report said, "assuming little significant change in the security situation, our 2007 tourist arrivals forecast is 43,877 persons, down 4.6 percent year-on-year."
The decline has been worsened by a Tamil Tiger attack on the Sri Lankan naval base in the port town of Galle.
Galle is a popular tourist destination owing to its Unesco World Heritage-protected fort. It is also home to around 500 British expatriates.
"Achieving targets for this winter season will be a problem," tourism ministry secretary Prathap Ramanujam predicted after the attack which destroyed three naval craft.
"Without [this] attack, we were expecting occupancy of 50 to 60% this winter, lower than our usual average of 75 to 80%," said Malin Hapugoda, managing director of the Aitken Spence hotel chain.
Sri Lanka was counting on 600,000 tourists this year, but Seenivasagam Kalaiselvam, Director General of SLTB, expects visitor arrivals to be flat at just over 500,000 in 2006.
SLTB had projected tourist arrivals to reach one million by 2010.
Meanwhile, the SLTB says it is aiming to increase the average expenditure per tourist to US$ 155 within three years.
“The current average spending of a tourist is $84. The 12.5% segment of business travelers is considered the sector that has the highest buying power,” an SLTB spokesman told reporters.
With almost all tourists arriving by air, Sri Lanka is to expand and re-surface its runway to handle jumbo sized A380 airbus aircraft, LBO reported.
Sri Lanka’s only international airport has a single runway to support air traffic, which cannot bear the giant aircraft under current conditions.
“We intend to overlay and widen to runway from 45 feet to 60 feet to support the A380 aircraft that will be coming in 2009, as well as do some work on the apron and taxiways,” a senior officials with the ministry of transport and aviation told LBO.
Sri Lanka greeted 38,815 visitors in October, the largest monthly decline since December 2005.
However, cumulative arrivals from Jan to Oct rose 7.4 percent to 482,787.
But there is a shift in the mix of visitors: Indians are the single largest visitor group while numbers of relatively high-spending European visitors are falling.
The traditional key markets of Britain and Germany, which attracts the usual sun 'n surf discount packages, continued to falter, as sun worshippers cancelled their holidays.
Arrivals from Britain fell 30.9 percent to 5,837, while German fell 14.8 percent to 4,218, for the 12 months to October 2006.
Amid rising violence, the Australian government has warned its citizens to reconsider travel plans to Sri Lanka. The US has warned there could be attacks in Colombo soon.
"We believe arrivals are likely to moderate further during the coming winter season as violence in the North and East continues to attract adverse publicity," C T Smith Stockbrokers said in a report this week.
Downgrading expected 2006 total arrivals by 4.9 percent to 570,102 visitors, the report said, "assuming little significant change in the security situation, our 2007 tourist arrivals forecast is 43,877 persons, down 4.6 percent year-on-year."
The decline has been worsened by a Tamil Tiger attack on the Sri Lankan naval base in the port town of Galle.
Galle is a popular tourist destination owing to its Unesco World Heritage-protected fort. It is also home to around 500 British expatriates.
"Achieving targets for this winter season will be a problem," tourism ministry secretary Prathap Ramanujam predicted after the attack which destroyed three naval craft.
"Without [this] attack, we were expecting occupancy of 50 to 60% this winter, lower than our usual average of 75 to 80%," said Malin Hapugoda, managing director of the Aitken Spence hotel chain.
Sri Lanka was counting on 600,000 tourists this year, but Seenivasagam Kalaiselvam, Director General of SLTB, expects visitor arrivals to be flat at just over 500,000 in 2006.
SLTB had projected tourist arrivals to reach one million by 2010.
Meanwhile, the SLTB says it is aiming to increase the average expenditure per tourist to US$ 155 within three years.
“The current average spending of a tourist is $84. The 12.5% segment of business travelers is considered the sector that has the highest buying power,” an SLTB spokesman told reporters.
With almost all tourists arriving by air, Sri Lanka is to expand and re-surface its runway to handle jumbo sized A380 airbus aircraft, LBO reported.
Sri Lanka’s only international airport has a single runway to support air traffic, which cannot bear the giant aircraft under current conditions.
“We intend to overlay and widen to runway from 45 feet to 60 feet to support the A380 aircraft that will be coming in 2009, as well as do some work on the apron and taxiways,” a senior officials with the ministry of transport and aviation told LBO.
