On paper, arrivals are up. Records are being broken with 2.36 million arrivals last year. The numbers look good enough to celebrate. However, average daily tourist spending has dropped, and foreign exchange earnings have fallen with it. That gap matters more than we’re willing to admit.

Part of the reason is obvious. The rupee has made Sri Lanka feel inexpensive. Visitors arrive with dollars and leave feeling like they’ve stretched them impressively. Everything feels like good value – for them.

For the country, it means offering more while earning less. We are a destination slowly learning how to sell itself cheap.

There’s a familiar defense for this. Budget tourists, we’re told, benefit ordinary people. They take buses and trains, they buy thambili from roadside sellers, the money goes directly to the grassroots. And yes, some of it does, making the situation sound wholesome.

But volume without value comes with its own costs. Public infrastructure carries the load, informal work absorbs the pressure. The benefits are uneven, the strain is shared, and the long-term return is rarely calculated. Affordable tourism is not the same thing as sustainable tourism.

At the same time, we keep talking about attracting high-spending visitors. Upmarket tourism is mentioned like a future plan, always just around the corner. But high-spending travelers don’t arrive because a destination wants them. They arrive because the systems support them.

Domestic aviation, planning, zoning, regulation, consistency. You can’t sell premium experiences on systems that are designed for survival.

Sri Lanka offers extraordinary things; landscapes, history, food, culture, warmth. But we price them like they’re ordinary, selling world-class experiences at clearance prices and then acting surprised when the returns don’t add up.

What we call generosity has quietly replaced strategy, and what we frame as accessibility has become a habit of undervaluing what we offer.

This isn’t a tourism boom. It’s a discount cycle, one that feels good to visitors and increasingly hollow to the country hosting them. We don’t have a problem attracting tourists. We have a problem knowing our worth.

Until that changes, more people will keep coming, and less value will keep staying.