Tourism shows strong growth in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Dec. 27 (Xinhua): Sri Lanka is ending 2011 with positive growth in tourism and remittances, according to the latest Central Bank statistics released on Tuesday. For the first 11 months of 2011, earnings from tourism grew at a healthy rate of 46.7 percent to 736 million U.S. dollars, whilst worker remittances topped the 4 billion U.S. dollar mark by October. Tourist arrivals for the first 11 months of 2011 increased by 33.1 percent to 758,458 compared to the first 11 months of 2010. The cumulative inflows on account of workers' remittances grew at 24.3 percent to 4.2 billion U.S. dollars for the first 10 months of 2011.