Sri Lanka said on Tuesday that tourist arrivals had fallen sharply amid the tropical island's intensifying ethnic conflict. Tourist arrivals had dropped 20 percent over the 10 months to October to 387,790 compared with the same period last year, Sri Lanka Tourism said.
October's arrivals were 4.6 percent lower at 37,011 compared with the same month in 2006. Overall earnings for the industry fell 16 percent over the nine months to September compared with the same period a year earlier.
Tourism is Sri Lanka's fourth-largest earner, after garments, remittances from overseas workers and tea. The country's 27-billion-dollar economy grew at an annual rate of 6.4 percent between April and June, according to official figures, despite the fighting and a drought.
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