From warning to wake-up call: Elephants now drive 40% of Sri Lanka's tourism economy

IN November 2020, we argued in this paper that “a cut tree, a dead elephant, is a lost tourism dollar in the future.” At the time, we estimated the lifetime value of a wild elephant at $ 11 million and warned that deforestation, human-elephant conflict, and shortsighted planning were dismantling the very assets Sri Lanka most needed to attract high-value travellers.

- By Michel Nugawela and Pesala Karunaratna

Five years later, the future has arrived and with startling clarity. Elephants are no longer a peripheral tourism attraction. They are the central economic engine of Sri Lanka's foreign exchange earnings.

From pre-crisis to recovery: Tourism's remarkable turnaround

If the past decade has taught Sri Lanka one lesson, it is that tourism is the fastest way out of crisis.

In 2018, the industry generated $ 5.6 billion from 2.5 million visitors, briefly standing as the nation's top foreign exchange earner. The 2019 Easter Sunday attacks cut earnings to $ 3.6 billion, and by 2022, the economic collapse had almost paralysed the sector.

Yet tourism rebounded with extraordinary speed. In 2024, arrivals climbed to 2.05 million and receipts to $ 3.17 billion, outpacing remittances, exports, and FDI in growth. In the first eight months alone, tourism brought in $ 2.2 billion, a 66% year-on-year increase.

This resilience underscores a critical truth: while exports, remittances, and FDI require years of structural reform, tourism has proven it can rebound quickly and inject immediate foreign exchange. And at the centre of this turnaround lies Sri Lanka's greatest comparative advantage — its elephants.

Elephants: The strongest foreign exchange engine

In 2024, 851,365 foreign visitors (nearly 41% of arrivals) came specifically to see elephants-focused national parks and forests. They generated $ 1.31 billion, or 40% of total tourism receipts.

That makes elephants alone as valuable as Sri Lanka's tea exports, long considered the backbone of the economy. Put differently, 7,500 wild elephants are now generating the same foreign exchange as an entire tea plantation industry.

This shift is profound: elephants have become a GDP-scale economic asset.

Export vulnerability: When the Rose Garden sneezes, Colombo catches a cold

By contrast, Sri Lanka's merchandise export model is fragile.