Sri Lanka expects 100,000 tourists from UK by the end of this year

With a new logo titled “Refreshingly Sri Lanka,” the Sri Lanka Tourism (SLT) launched the campaign at London’s World Travel Market earlier this week.

“Sri Lanka was named Best Value Destination 2010 by the Post Office Travel Money, Holiday Costs Barometer research and is set to be the top emerging luxury destination in 2011 according to the New York Times,” a statement issued by the SLT said.

India and UK are the biggest source markets for Sri Lanka Tourism. UK comes a close second in terms of arrival numbers but authorities say tourists from UK stay longer and are more and the yield is higher as a result.

Best destination

SLT’s UK Director, Sanjika Perera told BBC Sandeshaya that overall tourist arrivals have increased 44% during the last year.

Sri Lanka was named Best Value Destination 2010 by the Post Office Travel Money, Holiday Costs Barometer research and is set to be the top emerging luxury destination in 2011 according to the New York Times SLT statement

“Arrivals from the UK are up 30% and the market sentiments / forward bookings indicate that UK will pass the 100,000 mark in arrivals in 2010,” he said.

Tourist officials also expect many tourists to arrive in January for the Galle Literary Festival and to explore “wild” –including bird watching- as a refreshing new offer for visitors, lesser known than Sri Lanka’s beaches and ancient cultural wonders.

“The increasingly popular Galle Literary Festival has an impressive list of participants for 2011 including the recently announced Nobel, Booker, Orange, Commonwealth and Whitbread prize winners as well as new, young and emerging writers,” the statement added.