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| Wednesday, 22 September 2004 |
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Tourist Board mulls concessions on materials for refurbished hotels By Sudarshana Perera The Sri Lanka Tourist Board is exploring the possibility of granting duty concessions for materials that are being imported to refurbish hotels in the country. The Board has made representations to the Treasury and relevant officials in this regard. Director General of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board, S. Kalai Selvam told the Daily News that due to the surge in tourists, the Board is strictly monitoring classification requirements of the hotel and hotels that are not up to standard are declassified urging them to go for urgent refurbishment programs." Hence that promoted us to consider some duty concessions for imports that are being utilised for the purpose", he said. With the increase in the number of tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka, the refurbished hotels that have quality procedures have a high occupancy. Having realised that a large number of hotels have commenced their refurbishment programs. We will assist hotels that will venture into repairs", Selvam said. The Tourist Hotels Classification Committee is inspecting and classifying tourists hotels and also declassifying hotels if they do not maintain the required standards. During the last two months, six hotels were declassified for not maintaining the requisite standards. These hotels have the option to refurbish their hotels and submit applications to the Sri Lanka Tourist Board for reclassification. Until such time these hotels will remain as registered unclassified tourist hotels and they cannot display any board in their hotels or give publicity to their hotels as star class", he said. The Tourist Hotels Classification Committee consists of former Director General of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board Ranjith Perera, Eraj Abeywardana, Desmond Fernando, Gemunu Gunawardena, Kumar Mallimarachchi, Wijitha Perera and Mahinda Ratnayake. These members were appointed recently for a further two years. We have taken a policy decision that it will be made mandatory for all tourist hotels to adhere to the classification regulation and any incentive offered by the Board of Tourist will be based on their star category", he said. |
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