ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange revenue from tourism rose to $256.7 million in April, rising 13.7 percent compared to the same month last year, the central bank said, quoting tourism promotion authorities.
The revenue in April last year was $225.7 million.
Sri Lanka’s new government has aimed ambitious $5 billion revenue from tourism this year.
The country has received $1.38 billion earnings from tourism in the first four months of the year with a 10.2 percent rise compared to $1.25 billion in the same period last year.
The island nation witnessed $3.17 billion revenue in 2024, with a 53.2 percent jump compared to $2.07 billion in the previous year, the data showed.
The arrivals also have picked up 14.3 percent in the first four months of 2025 compared to the same period last year with the number of foreign visitors to Sri Lanka rose to 896,884 in the period compared to the last year’s 784,651.
The arrivals jumped 38.1 percent to 2.05 million in 2024 compared to the previous year. Sri Lanka missed its ambitious 2.3 million tourist arrival target and $5 billion revenue in 2024. The government has set an ambitious 3 million arrival target this year.
Tourism accounted for nearly 5 percent of Sri Lanka’s economy when the sector was at its peak in 2018. Since then, it has been hit by violent Easter Sunday suicide attack in 2019 and Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 followed by an unprecedented economic crisis.
The tourism earnings figure is estimated from a survey conducted by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority.
Sri Lanka’s imports and the merchandise trade deficit have gradually picked up as tourism earnings came in and people in the sector spent the wages and other earnings. (Colombo/May 10/2025)
