Sri Lanka's tourism industry is unlikely to be affected by the recent travel advisory from the UK, which warned of political violence ahead of the presidential election next month.
Industry experts told the Sunday Times that large-scale election violence was unlikely and the peak season was looking good.
“Bookings are great (for December) and I don’t expect any election violence that would deter arrivals,” one official said, adding: “These are routine advisories issued ahead of any election”.
Rumy Jauffer, managing director of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, said that arrivals would reach the targeted 1.5 million this year with China closing in on the UK’s position as the second largest country of origin.
“Chinese arrivals are showing triple digit growth for the past few months,” he said.
According to the latest data for the year until November, Indian arrivals rose by 16.3 per cent to 216.581 arrivals when compared with the 11-month figures in 2013 while UK arrivals rose by 4.9 per cent to 128,172. Chinese arrivals totalled 117,766, up by 137.6 per cent from 2013 figures.
UK warns travellers of Sri Lankan electoral violence (03 Dec 2014)