Sri Lanka, Sept. 27 -- Sri Lanka has emerged as one of the world's ten fastest-improving tourism economies in the World Economic Forum Travel and Tourism Development Index 2026, recording a 4.3% score gain between 2024 and 2026.

However, despite climbing to 69th place globally with a score of 3.85, a critical assessment of the framework reveals that the island's overall enabling conditions remain 4.7% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels, underscoring persistent structural vulnerabilities.

While the World Economic Forum report places Sri Lanka tenth among global fastest improvers, regional competitors including Viet Nam, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Nepal achieved higher growth rates over the same period.

The analysis indic...