This is up from the 720,000 tourists it welcomed in 2022, but still below the record 2.3 million visitors that flocked to the country in 2018, Padma Siriwardana, managing director of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, told The National on Thursday on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.

The sector is on target to achieve its annual goal after receiving 450,000 visitors this year to the end of April, she said.

“We are back on track for recovery. We are coming out stronger because our industry is very resilient,” Ms Siriwardana said.

The recovery comes after the country's tourism sector suffered several setbacks: the Easter attacks in 2019, the two-year Covid-19 pandemic and widespread street protests in 2022 in response to an unprecedented economic crisis that led to severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel, cooking gas and electricity.