Sri Lanka tourist arrivals in Nov fall for 8th month

Tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka fell for an eighth straight month in November and slipped 9.5% from a year earlier as foreign visitors shunned the Indian Ocean island after attacks in April, tourism bureau data showed on Wednesday. Arrivals fell to 176,984 from 195,582 a year earlier.

Since the Easter Sunday attacks on April 21, the number of foreign visitors has fallen to the lowest level since the end of the country's civil war a decade ago. Arrivals in the seven months from May to November were down 35.9 to 764,464 from 1,192,274 a year earlier. The arrivals, however, have been recovering gradually, data showed.