Sri Lanka tourism surges to record high ? Why

Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals beat a record high in November and for the year, with visitor totals climbing every month ,day on a year-on-year basis since a 25-year ethnic civil war ended in May 2009.

Tourist arrivals in November achieved a monthly record of 90,889, up 25.8 per cent from October, wonderful the island nation's previous monthly peak of 84,627 in December.

The arrivals in the first 11 months of 2011 jumped 33.1 per cent to 758,458 from a year earlier, higher than Sri Lanka's record annual tourist arrivals of 654,476 in 2010.

The country development plan has done major back support to come this stage , entire Island road infrastructure has been upgrading very fast. It was a fruitful news that open Southern Highway from Colombo to Down south Last 27th of November.

• The following table shows tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka:

2011 2010 Change (in %)

November	90,889	72,251	32.8
Jan-Nov	758,458	569,849	33.1

The government is targeting annual revenue of $2.75 billion by 2016 from 2.5 million expected visitors attracted by Sri Lanka's beaches, hills and religious and historic sites, while aiming for $3 billion in foreign direct investment.

Sri Lanka had forecast 20 per cent growth in visitor arrivals this year, or more than 780,000 people. Nalaka Godahewa, the head of Sri Lanka Tourism Board, on Friday said he expects this year's arrivals to be as high as 830,000.

Last year, arrivals grew by 46 per cent. The island's tourism industry drew $1.2 billion for investment in the first half of 2011.

Tourism revenue, which jumped 64.8 per cent in 2010 to a record $575.9 million, has risen 48.1 percent in the first nine months of this year from a year earlier to $580.1 million, central bank data shows.

The Sri Lanka has selected world top 10 tourist destination in the world.