COLOMBO, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Over 37,000 tourists arrived in Sri Lanka in August with a drop recorded from the previous month, due to travel advisories imposed by some countries amidst an economic crisis in the island country, local media reported here Monday.
According to official statistics from the Sri Lanka Tourism Ministry, August arrivals fell by 20.2 percent to 37,760 from 47,293 in July, but industry experts were hopeful to exceed the one million tourist arrival mark by year end.
May recorded the lowest tourist arrivals with 30,207 within the past eight months of the year, whilst the second lowest inflow was in June with 32,856. Overall, in the first eight months of this year, Sri Lanka had received 496,430 tourist arrivals.
Statistics from the Tourism Ministry showed that the daily average arrivals had dropped to 1,218 from 1,526 in July. The highest daily average arrivals so far this year were in March with over 3,600, but the numbers kept declining due to the economic crisis and political instability.
Sri Lankan Tourism Minister Harin Fernando recently said that Sri Lanka expects to generate 2 billion U.S. dollars worth of revenue from the country's tourism industry this year. ■
