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| Friday, 30 July 2004 |
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Tourism - fifth largest foreign exchange earner for Lanka by Shirajiv Sirimane Lankan tourism confirmed its rank as the fifth largest foreign exchange earner of the country. The foreign exchange earnings increased by 35.6% from 24.2 million in 2002 to 32.8 million last year. It was also encouraging to note that the spending powers of tourists too was increased from US$ 63.4 per day to US$ 66.8 last year. This puts Sri Lanka on course for a 'high spenders' destination. Tourism was behind textiles and garments (Rs. 248.5 billion), private foreign remittances (Rs. 136.5 billion), tea (Rs. 65.9 billion) and machinery and equipment (Rs. 27.9 billion). Last year (2003) was a remarkable year for Sri Lanka tourism. Notably, amounts in the key tourism indicators such as tourist arrivals, foreign exchange earnings, receipt per tourist per day, number of tourist nights, tourist hotel rooms and number of employees in the industry surpassed their previous corresponding peaks in 2003. Tourist arrivals surpassed the half a million mark for the first time in the history in 2003, totalling to 500,642, an increase of 107,471 or 27.3% when compared with the 393,171 arrivals registered for the year 2002, according to the annual statistical report of the Sri Lanka Tourism 2003. In 2003, the United Kingdom, became the top tourist generating market to Sri Lanka (93,306) while India was the second. (90,639) The total tourist nights spent increased by 27.7% from 3,989,058 in 2002 to 5,092,783 in 2003. The overall annual occupancy rate of hotels increased by 10.1 percentage points, from 43.1% in 2002, to 53.2% in 2003. Accommodation capacity in tourist hotels increased by 319 rooms to reach 14,137 in 233 tourist hotels in 2003, from 222 tourist hotels operated with 13,818 rooms in 2002. The number of beds too increased from 25,968 in 2002 to 26,511 in 2003. The total employment in the hotel industry, both directly in the servicing sectors, and indirectly in the supplying sectors surpassed the one hundred thousand mark for the first time, amounting to 112,226, an increase of 20.5% from the 93,170 jobs provide by the industry in 2002. In 2003, Western Europe continued to be the main tourist generating region to Sri Lanka with the arrivals from the region numbering 255,169 in 2003, up from 200,295 last year, reflecting a substantial increase of 27.4% However, the Western Europe's market share has remained unchanged at 50.9% in 2003 as in 2002. U.K. was the market leader in the Western European region and recorded an increase of 38.1% from 67,533 in 2002 to 93,278 in 2003. Asia was the second largest tourist generator to Sri Lanka. Its market share has lightly decreased from 36.4% in 2002, to 35.4% in 2003. The arrivals increased by 24.0%, from 143,064 in 2002, to 177,351 tourists in 2003. Sub-regions South Asia and East Asia recorded increases of 28.8% and 15.7% respectively. Major markets, India recorded an increase of 29.5% and positioned as the second largest tourist generating market to Sri Lanka during the year after U.K. Other major market, Japan too showed an increase of 25.8% during the year. The distribution of foreign guest nights in tourist hotels by region shows that a major share of 37.2% of foreign guest nights has been spent in the Southern coastal area. The Colombo city area accounted for 23.1% while the ancient cities and greater Colombo regions accounted for 18.0% and 17.1% respectively. High country (3.5%) and East coast (1.1%) regions accounted for the balance. Overall, foreign tourists accounted for 80.4% of the total guest nights in tourist hotels, while the local tourists had a dominant share of 61.9% in. Total number of persons employed directly in the tourism sector at the end of 2003 amounted to 46,761, which was an increase of 20.5% over the figure of 38,821 recorded in 2002. As in previous years, the majority of employment opportunities have been created in the sectors of accommodation and catering (64.5%) travel agencies (12.8%) and airlines (7.7%) have also provided a substantial number of job opportunities. Dine under the moon and stars by Richmond Wijesekera, Bentota group correspondent Confifi Group's Club Palm Garden Hotel, Beruwala recently opened their newly constructed Tree House located within the hotel premises on a 'Sooriya' tree. Asst. Manager, Club Palm Garden Hotel, Refhan N. Razeen invented this unique concept. This is the first time a Tree House was constructed in the history of hotel industry. Soon after the opening the first couple to occupy the Tree House was Mr/s. Stoffels and Camus from Germany. Their names will be written in golden letters in the hotel history, Mr. Razeen said. Only one couple can stay for a day on this Tree House and they are offered with special Menu prepared by famous Chef Deepal de Alwis. After the dinner the Menu card will be presented as a souvenir to the guests with their photographs. There is a special violinist to present music during the dinner. The plates of the Tree House are in different colours with Sinhalese letters engraved on it along with expensive cutlery sets. As they dine in the Tree House they can view the ships sailing in the far away Indian Ocean. Mr/s. Stoffels and Camus said that this is their first experience in a Tree House and it is very fine. We like it very much. We will try to introduce this in Germany too. Speaking on the ceremony Refhan N. Razeen said, it has been a long awaited dream which has finally come true. He thanked all Club Palm Garden Staff who were involved in this project. |
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