Sri Lanka is only 20.7% behind the international tourists arrivals in 2018, the Sri Lankan Tourism Development Authority said.

The country's' international arrivals plummetted to 70.8% in May in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday explosions.

"The total number of international tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka during October 2019 was 118,743. In comparison to October last year, there was a decline of 22.5% when the arrivals were 153,123," the SLTDA said in a statement.

The statement also added,"As at 31st October 2019, 1,495,055 of tourists had visited Sri Lanka for this year. It is a decline of 20.7% over last year when 1,885,045 of tourists has visited the country during the same period.

However, Sri Lanka saw a 70.8% significant drop in arrivals in May 2019 compared to 2018 due to the Easter Sunday Attacks in April. Further, the change in arrivals between 2018 and 2019 was 57% in June, 46.9% in July, 28.3 % in August, 27.2% in September and in October it was 22.5%.

This month, the largest source markets for tourists were India, followed by China and the United Kingdom. Almost 98 % of tourists travelled by air to Sri Lanka. Even though the numbers are lower than the previous years, the trend of the month to month is similar which indicates that the seasonal market behaviour has not changed."