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by Shirajiv Sirimane

The recent international events in Sri Lanka had a major boost on Sri Lanka's tourism sector, specially for employees of the industry.

The ICC Champions' trophy involving 12 countries and recognised as the second biggest event after the Cricket World cup which was concluded in Colombo last Monday had the biggest impact on the industry, in recent times.

All the five star hotels in Colombo were packed to capacity and was a hive of activity. The staff of the hotels were rewarded with some hotel employees receiving over Rs 10,000 as service charge for August.

According to a spokesman of the accounts department of Hilton Colombo, the management paid Rs. 14,472 as service charge for each of their 243-member staff for August. The hotel paid half of this amount and this year there was a sharp increase in service charge. The reason for this was the cricket tournament which attracted officials, guests and visitors including cricketers to our hotel," he said.

Another official of the hotel said that the atmosphere at the hotel lobby was unique with many people watching the matches on the giant TV screen and players walking to the hotel. The Manager of Taj Samudra Praveen Nair, which was the official hotel for the event, said that the industry received the much needed boost and promotion from this event. "The human is a talking social animal and when players and officials go back to their country they will carry the message that Sri Lanka is a beautiful country and that it is safer than most of their countries. Even New Zealanders who have had bad experiences in Sri Lanka on previous occasions too will carry this message."

He said that as far as the staff was concerned they were paid high service charges which is definitely over the Rs. 10,000 mark. "This is the highest amount we have paid the staff in recent history. Since the cricketers were very friendly the staff got the opportunity of meeting them, and even taking photographs with them. This was also a good motivation for the staff."

He said that they had a major Indian clientele during the tournament. "In addition to the players of the 12 countries and ICC personnel, top officials of the Indian corporate sector too stayed in our hotel."

The Manager said that such sports and other international events should be promoted regularly in Sri Lanka to attract more tourists.

An official of the Galadari hotel which is the official hotel of the Australia and Pakistan test series said that August was a very good month for them. "We had the best revenue in recent times and paid the highest service charge (Rs. 8,700 to our employees in August)."

Director Operations and Management Galle Face Hotel, Anura Lokuhetti, said that their hotel is operating at a high occupancy and most of the guests were Indians. "This is because of cricket.

We paid the highest service charge to our staff in August. This is mainly due to cricket and in addition we have also restructured our organisation and reduced excess staff."

Lokuhetti who is also the President of the Beruwela Bentota Hoteliers' Association said that there was a 77% increase in Indian tourist arrivals. In the first half of last year there were 22,020 Indian arrivals and this year this has risen to 38,991. However in contrast there is a sharp decline in European arrivals."

He attributed this to the lack of flights. He said that Sri Lanka needs more hotels. "We have only 13,560 hotel rooms and 213 registered hotels in Sri Lanka. There are only 11 five star hotels, 7 four stars, 5 three stars, 32 two stars and 30 single star hotels. In addition there are 139 hotels approved by the Ministry of Tourism."

"One reason for the Indians visiting Sri Lanka is the Visa on arrival policy, peace, MICE tourism, as well the re-launching of flights to Jaffna."

"The Indian have realised that it is far cheaper and quicker to visit Sri Lanka and even conduct conferences in Sri Lanka. This is a market that has to be aggressively promoted. But the authorities must ensure that there are more flights not only to India but to other destinations as well." Lokuhetti said that the average spending power of a tourist has now increased to around US 63 per day and last year the total turnover from the tourism sector had been over US 250 million.

He noted that tourism which was Sri Lanka's fourth foreign exchange earner had now dropped to fifth place. "If this positive trend continues I am sure that tourism can soon be made Sri Lanka's number one foreign exchange earner."

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