Abstract:
Tourism has been playing a key role in global economy while creating
employment opportunities, generating export revenue and adding value to the
domestic resources. It has become a fastest growing sector and important
economic sector across the globe, specifically in developing countries such as
Sri Lanka. The international tourist arrival was 1.4 billion and international
tourism export was US$ 1.7 trillion (SLTDA annual report, 2018). As per SLTDA
monthly report 2019, the total number of international tourists to Sri Lanka
was 1913702 in 2019. This study aimed to analyze the overall trends in tourist
arrivals and to identify the recent trends in profile characteristics of tourist
arrivals in Sri Lanka. Overall trends delineated in this article are based on the
statistical data from 2000 to 2019.The prominent features of tourists such as
age, gender, occupation, period of stay and purpose of visit were analyzed by
employing three year moving average method and regression analysis with the
help of MS Excel. Analyzing the trends is important for creating demand for
hotel accommodation, economic development, job creation and infrastructure
development by the government. Pleasure/holiday and visiting friends are the
only two purposes of visit of tourists that showed increasing trend. In age
group, 60 years and over, 50-59 years and 20-29 years showed an increasing
trend and 50-59 age group indicated a remarkable increasing trend during the
study period. Further, the investigation confirmed that female tourist arrival
showed a significant increasing trend whereas male tourist arrival showed
decreasing trend. The trend of period of stay depicted that international
visitors preferred to stay lengthy nights in Sri Lanka as the periods of stay 22-
30 nights, 15-21 nights, 31 nights and more. Further, 4-7 nights and 8-14
nights showed increasing trend and remarkably 15-21 nights stay of tourists
increased. The present study also concluded that only retired person category
is showing a low and increasing trend
