ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka has acquired 150 vacationers from Israel within the first 5 days of November, official authorities knowledge confirmed, weeks after threats over doable assault on a Japanese coastal tourism hotspot the place extra Israeli vacationers collect.
The variety of vacationers from Israel has elevated to 22,063 as of November 5, in comparison with 21,913 on the finish of October 31, the newest weekly tourism knowledge confirmed.
Israel on October 23 requested its residents to keep away from non-essential travel to Sri Lanka, go away coastal vacationer areas together with Arugam Bay and cease overt shows of Hebrew language in garments or different indicators that might result in identification, following the US embassy in Colombo warned residents to not journey to Arugam Bay within the island’s Eastern Coast as there was credible data of an assault.
Seven nations – the US, Israel, Russia, Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia – issued journey advisories after a minimum of three international intelligence businesses alerted of a doable assault in Arugam Bay.
These seven nations have accounted for 29 % of the 1.48 million tourist arrivals within the first 9 months of this yr.
Sri Lanka authorities later mentioned it was in talks with international embassies to take away journey advisories after safety measures have been put in place to the areas which have been dealing with assault threats.
Quickly after the journey advisories have been issued, tourism operators raised issues over doable cancellation of bookings as a result of journey advisories.
Any adversarial impacts on the tourism business might derail Sri Lanka’s restoration from an unprecedented financial disaster after declaring sovereign debt default in 2022. Tourism has been one of many key elements within the island nation’s financial restoration.
The island nation noticed 30,620 vacationers within the first 5 days of this month and there have been greater than 8,600 vacationers from the seven nations which issued journey advisories, accounting for over 28 %, the info confirmed. (Colombo/November 08/2024)
