Tourist arrivals at record high

A tourist takes a photograph at the Galle Face beach in Colombo yesterday. Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka hit a record high in 2017, with the number of foreign visitors in December rising 8.8% year-on-year to an all-time monthly peak. Tourist arrivals rose 3.2% to 2.1mn in 2017, government data showed, last week. Revenue in 2016 increased to an all-time high of $3.4bn, beating the previous record of $2.98bn in 2015, the Central Bank data showed.