Record arrivals and diminishing returns: Part 1

Marketing 101 - What our customers are really telling us

- By Stefan Furkhan

2025's milestone tourist Felix Beslin Pereira (second from right) along with Deputy Tourism Minister Prof. Ruwan Ranasinghe and Sri Lanka Tourism Chairman Buddhika Hewawasam cut a special cake on arrival at the Bandaranaike International Airport last week where he was accorded a ceremonial welcome on account of Sri Lanka achieving highest ever tourist arrivals in a year

(Pic by Lasantha Kumara)

ON 29 December 2025, Sri Lanka crossed a symbolic threshold. For the first time in its history, the country recorded its highest ever tourist arrivals in a calendar year, with the milestone visitor being an Indian trav-eller arriving on a Sri Lankan airlines flight. It was genuinely good news, a clear sign that tourism has become one of the pillars of our economic recovery and that we have surpassed the previous record year of 2018.

The rebound is all the more remarkable given what the industry has weathered in recent years from the Easter attacks and pandemic shutdowns to the economic crisis and even the disruptions caused by Cyclone Ditwah. The sector has shown resilience. But resilience alone is not a strategy.

Arrivals alone do not build a tourism economy. Value does; how long people stay, how much they spend, how widely that spending spreads, and whether they come back.

That milestone therefore prompted a more forward-looking reflection. Now that we have reached this point, how should we take tourism to the next level? How do we build on momentum while shifting the conversation firmly towards quality over quantity?