Sri Lanka eyes five lakh tourists from India in 2025

This will help in increasing the spend per tourist and bring in much needed foreign exchange for the Sri Lankan economy, he added.

Sri Lanka received 2.05 million overseas visitors in 2024. India is the largest source market for the island country accounting for over 20 per cent of tourists in first eight months of 2025. In 2024 over 4.16 lakh Indians visited the country.

“We are expecting five lakh tourists from India in 2025. Indians are travelling beyond Colombo and Bentota to central highlands. Ramayana Trails is another attraction,” he said.

For the first time Sri Lanka is carrying out multi city road shows in India to promote itself as a wedding destination. Apart from easy connectivity, free visas and cultural connect, Hewawasam highlighted the budget appeal of Sri Lanka in his interaction with travel agents in Mumbai.

“Currently the average spend per tourist per day is $ 170. We are targeting $ 180 this year,” Hewawasam said. Sri Lanka tourism will help agents in venue sourcing, co-ordination with local event planners and with special packages, Hewawasam said.

Overall Sri Lanka is expecting 2.6 million foreign visitors in 2026. “ Arrivals fron West Asia are increasing. Traffic from East Europe, Thailand and Japan is also growing fast,” he said.

Along with worker remittances, tourism receipts are a key source of foreign exchange for Sri Lanka which suffered a debt crisis in 2022. Tourism is increasingly becoming more important for the country due to competition and challenges in apparel and tea exports - other large revenue earners for economy.