Growth in tourists visiting Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's tourism industry has shown significant growth in the first two months of 2026. According to the latest weekly report released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, 279,328 tourists visited the island during the period from February 01 to February 28, 2026 alone.

This indicates a clear growth compared to previous years.

Analyzing the February data, the 279,328 tourist arrivals in 2026 represent a 16.2 percent increase compared to the 240,217 arrivals recorded in February 2025. Furthermore, when compared to 2018, which saw 235,618 tourist arrivals, the data confirms that tourist arrivals in February this year have increased by 18.5 percent.

This positive trend was also observed in January 2026, with 277,327 tourists visiting the island during that month. This is an increase of 9.7 percent compared to January 2025 (252,761 tourists) and 16.0 percent compared to January 2018 (238,924 tourists). With these continuous tourist arrival records, the total number of tourists who have visited Sri Lanka by the end of the first two months of 2026, January and February, stands at 556,655.