Over 27,000 Indian tourists visited Sri Lanka in September 2015

Over 27,000 Indian tourists visited Sri Lanka in September 2015 and arrivals from South Asia overall increased by 41.8 percent.

According to a Colombo Page report, in September 2015, about 40,498 South Asian tourists visited the island-nation, and 27,233 of them were from India alone.

The South Asian tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka last month was a marginal improvement over the 41.5 percent figure in the corresponding period in 2014.

Overall, in September, tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka rose 35.9 percent, as per data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA).

The month recorded 143,374 tourists arriving in the country compared to the 105,535 arrived in September 2014. In the first nine months of this year 1,315,839 tourists visited the island, an increase of 17.1 percent compared to the 1,107,178 recorded for the same period in 2014.

In the first seven months of this year, earnings from the tourism sector increased by 16.8 percent and Sri Lanka earned USD 1.6 billion from tourism.

Sri Lanka exceeded its target of 1.5 million tourist arrivals last year and earned USD 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.