The influx of British tourists into Sri Lanka has fallen following the murder of a British tourist and the rape of his girlfriends at a holiday resort in the South of the island, according to official figures.
Statistics from Sri Lanka’s Tourist Board show whilst tourist numbers from Western Europe had increased, there was a 14.2% decline in the number of British tourists in January compared to last year. Visitors from Western Europe still made up the bulk of tourists to Sri Lanka, accounting for 42% in total.
There have been growing number of incidents of rape and sexual abuse of tourists, particularly those from Western Europe, with women from Netherlands, Sweden and Germany having allegedly been raped or sexually abused in the past few months.
See our earlier posts:
Further incident of tourist raped in Sri Lanka (09 Feb 2012)
Another tourist sexually abused in Matara (22 Jan 2012)
More rape incidents of tourists emerge (02 Jan 2012)
‘Attempted rape’ of Swedish tourist adds to Sri Lanka’s woes (31 Dec 2011)
Investigation of British tourist's murder under scrutiny (29 Dec 2011)
Rajapakse associate arrested for murder and rape of tourists (27 Dec 2011)
British tourist murdered on Christmas Eve after row with local politician (26 Dec 2011)
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