This is an year on year increase of almost 36 per cent. Maldivian tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka has seen a growth during year 2013 with the country receiving 46,805 visitors from the archipelago nation during the first 10 months of the year.
During October 2013, Sri Lanka has received 6,538 tourists from Maldives, a 86.3-pct increase compared to the arrivals recorded an year ago.
This puts Maldives among the top 5 markets from where Sri Lanka received the highest number of tourists during October, 2013.
“The top five sources of tourist arrivals in October 2013 were India, UK, Middle East, Germany and Maldives, accounting for about 50 per cent of tourist arrivals during the month”, added Central Bank in its external trade report of October.
“The prime reason for the growth in the Maldivian tourist to the Island is mainly due to good air travel connectivity, between the two destinations”, said Yuwaraj Athukorala, an Assistant Director at the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau.
High number of direct flights operated between Male and Colombo by SriLankan Airlines and high inter connectivity where foreign flights touches down in Colombo when flying between Male and other global destinations are cited as key reasons for the increase visitor arrivals from Male.
The significance of this is that Maldives is not a market which Sri Lanka Tourism looks at aggressively.
It does not do any kind of promotional activities in that country to attract visitors from the archipelago situated in the Indian ocean despite short air travel time between the two destinations.
Flight time between Male and Colombo is around one and half hours.
Sri Lanka’s tourism arrivals in total has surpassed 1 million visitors by November 2013.
Indian tourists to the Island during the first 10 months of the year stands at 150,000 visitors, the highest received from a single country, during he reference period.