Sri Lanka tourist arrivals up 14.8pc in Feb

COLOMBO, Mar 15 (LBO): Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals rose 14.8 per cent to 65,797 in February 2011 from a year earlier, though visitors from key generating markets in the United Kingdom and Germany dropped. February arrivals were also lower than the January peak of 74,197 as the Western European winter season drew to a close. In 2010 tourist arrivals rose 46 per cent to 654,476 from low base in 2009 when a 30-year war ended with arrivals growth 30 to 40 per cent a month. Sri Lanka's resort tourism industry in particular depends on the Western European winter season for profits. Visitors from Western Europe were broadly up 15.8 per cent to 31,092 in February with France growing 45.1 per cent to 4,993 and the Netherlands 59.2 per cent to 2,596, government tourist promotion office data showed. But tourists from the UK, fell 10.2 per cent to 9,614 and tourists from Germany fell 5.1 per cent to 5,367. Smaller markets starting from a low base such as Austria (up 26.8 per cent to 909), Belgium (up 43.6 per cent to 800) Spain (up 45.3 per cent to 494) more than made up for the drop.