1.9% tourist rise despite terrorist bogey

Shirajiv Sirimane

COLOMBO: Despite the adverse publicity generated by the Western media and negative travel advisories from Europe Sri Lanka saw an increase of tourist arrivals last year. The figures showed a 1.9 per cent increase.

Sri Lanka had 559,603 arrivals last year, an increase of more than 10,000 over 2005. The highest arrivals were from India with 128,370 and there were also 88,306 from the United Kingdom. German and Netherlands arrivals saw a major increase last year while the Belgium market saw a 64.3 increase, which was very pleasing. However, there was a sharp dip from the French market.

With a series of promotions launched by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board and the availability of a direct SriLankan Airlines flight helped almost double the Chinese tourists who are high spenders.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had instructed the SLTB to promote regional tourism and the Tourism Deputy Minister Faizer Mustafa said they are working on this. "The highest arrivals for a long period had been from India and we are launching more promotion campaigns to the region," he said.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Secretary P. Ramanujam said except for two star class hotels all the hotels which were damaged by the tsunami has now been rebuilt and most have been upgraded to superior hotels. "This is a very impressive record," he said.

During this year the Government will be embarking on two major tourism development projects in Kalpitiya and in Trincomalee.

The Kalpitiya area would be developed and would be promoted as an up market tourist designation with a Golf course and other up market facilities. "Sri Lanka is fast making a name as an up market destination and we want to have more luxury hotels.

There are several foreign investors who are keen to invest on this project," said Chairman SLTB, Udaya Nanayakkara.On the instruction of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Trincomalee, which is already a major tourist destination would be promoted for investors and the Board of Investment (BoI) is already working on this. Land for tourist activities have been already identified.

Meanwhile, the industry is pressuring Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike to implement the Tourism act, which would lift the industry.