Sri Lanka Wants 3 Million Tourists. It’s More Interested in What They Spend

Photo Credit: Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka Unsplash / Anton Lecock Sri Lanka announced at the Arabian Travel Mart last week that it is aiming for 3 million international tourists over the next 12 months. But the country increasingly wants to be judged on a different number: how much those visitors spend. The government is targeting more than $5 billion in tourism earnings, according to Alexi Gunasekera, consul general of Sri Lanka to Dubai, who spoke exclusively to Skift at the Arabian Travel Market. “If we try to attract the normal spending, low-end tourists, we may achieve the numbers, but not tourism earnings,” Gunasekera said. “We are going for quality rather than quantity.” Sri Lanka generated about $3.2 billion from 2.36 million visitors in 2025, or roughly $1,360 per visitor. To reach $5 billion from 3 million visitors, it would need to lift that to about $1,667 per visitor, still well below destinations like the Maldives that earn roughly $2,480 per visitor. The island nation recorded a recor