Indians account for maximum tourists into Sri Lanka

Kochi, Mar 27: Indians have replaced Britons to emerge as the largest group of tourists visiting Sri Lanka, accounting for almost one-fifth of the total arrivals to the 'emerald island' last year.

Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Secretary General Prema Cooray told UNI on the sidelines of the Kerala Health Tourism 2007 (KHT-2007) meet here that the number of Indians visiting Sri Lanka had gone up substantially after the island nation introduced 'visa on arrival' for SAARC member states.

Of the 5,00,000 overseas tourists to Sri Lanka last year, about 1,00,000 were Indians. While Britons came second, Germans were on the third position.

Talking of the impact of the Tamil insurgency on tourism, he said the relatively peaceful period between 2002-05 had seen tourist arrivals go up by almost 20 per cent.

However, with the escalation of violence since last year, the numbers were again coming down and the industry was expecting an increase of only about ten per cent this year.

Mr Cooray said earlier, Indians preferred to go to Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia rather than Sri Lanka because of visa, connectivity and foreign exchange problems. All three had now been resolved and this had resulted in a surge in the number of Indian tourists.

There are almost 120 flights between India and Sri Lanka every week, including about 100 being operated by Sri Lankan Airlines, he said.

UNI