Tourist arrivals up by 16.7% in February 2015

Tourist arrivals rose 16.7% in February this year compared to the same period last year, the data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) showed.
The month recorded 165,541tourists arriving in the country compared to the 141,878 arrived in February 2014.
In the first two months of this year 321,787 tourists visited the island, an increase of 11.6% compared to the same period in 2014.
Tourist arrivals from Western Europe reached 60,777 during the month, a 15.5% increase from the 52,635 tourists arrived in the same month last year.
Arrivals from Eastern Europe however, declined 24.4% with the arrival of 17,327 tourists in February 2015 while tourist arrivals from Middle East also declined by 5.0% with 4,673 visitors arriving. Tourist arrivals from East Asia increased 67.2% as 41,907 visited the country compared to the 25,065 visited in February 2014.
Arrivals from China compared to last year increased 165.8% with the arrival of 27,425 visitors.
Arrivals from South Asia increased by 11.7% with 29,011 tourists visiting the island in February 2015. Of those arrived from South Asia, 19,999 were from India corresponding to an increase of 14.1%.
Arrivals from North America rose 23.0% to 6,750 in February and the arrivals from US rose 36.9% to 3,942 during the month.
Sri Lanka exceeded its target of 1.5 million tourist arrivals last year and earned $ 2.206 billion from tourism.
The Tourism Authority has set a target of two million tourist arrivals this year and 2.5 million by 2016.