Sri Lanka’s tourist industry is still struggling to recover from the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks, with arrival numbers dropping by more than half from last year.
The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority said there were just 63,072 tourist visits to Sri Lanka last month, a drop of 57% from June 2018, when the number was 146,828. Tourist numbers in May had fallen 70.8% to 37,802 compared with 129,466 a year ago
The numbers mark the lowest foreign arrivals to the island since the armed conflict ended more than a decade ago. The fall, described as a “nosedive” by Reuters, comes after the Easter Sunday bombings, which killed 258 people including 45 foreigners at luxury hotels in Colombo.
Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera admitted that the loss to Sri Lanka’s tourist industry will be just under $1 billion.
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