Sri Lanka to conduct ‘leakage survey’ to determine accurate tourism revenue

 Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) will start a leakage survey towards the end of this month to determine the accurate revenue from tourism, its chairman said.

After the latest survey conducted early this year, the SLTDA has revised down per day spending from foreign visitor to US$148 from the early US$171 decided through a survey a decade ago.

“There will be another survey coming up at the end of this month, the leakage survey,” Buddhika Hewawasam, the SLTDA Chairman told reporters on Monday at a media briefing held in Colombo.

The survey is to determine how many dollars remaining in Sri Lanka out of 148 dollars, he said.

In the tourism sector, leakage refers to the portion of money spent by tourists that leaves the host country’s economy instead of circulating locally.

This happens through mechanisms like imports of food and drinks for foreigners, repatriation of profits by foreign-owned hotels or airlines, foreign worker remittances, and overseas marketing costs.

While some leakage is inevitable in any open economy, it can be alarmingly high, which means only a fraction of tourism revenue benefits local communities, jobs, and development.

A leakage survey is a systematic that measures the extent of outflow, often through data on supply chains, ownership structures, import dependencies, and expenditure patterns.