Kalpitiya tourism gets off

Italy, UK, India eye Rs. 400b investment:

Shirajiv Sirimane

Three investors from Italy, UK and India have shown keenness to invest in the proposed Kalpitiya Integrated Tourism Resort Development Project. (KITRDP). The total cost of the investment will be Rs. 400 billion.

The KITRDP is a project that offers 4,000 acres in Kalpitiya which also include 514 small islands. The KITRDP is aimed at converting the venue to an up market luxury resort with theme parks, cables cars, golf courses, 4,000 luxury villas, conference facilities and many other attractions.
 

Project Director, KITRDP, Prasad Galhena said they were more than happy with the response form the three foreign investors.

“These three investors have already spent Rs. 15 million to conduct feasibility studies on the proposed KITRDP,” he said.

In addition to these three investors, a foreign consortium and many other investors, too have shown an interest in investing in this project. “The Government is yet to decide if the project would be given to one investor or many investors,” he said.

A sum of Rs. 200 million is to be allocated to pay compensation to families who will be relocated and a further Rs. 40 million is to be invested for a bridge to link the mainland with the islands.

He said India has already invested in a project of this nature and it’s time that Sri Lanka too speed up this project.

The project to be completed in two years is expected to generate 15,000 direct employment opportunities.

Chairman Sri Lanka Tourism, Renton de Alwis said the KITRDP will be marketed as a separate destination. “Destinations such as Ibiza in Spain and Bali in Indonesia are marketed separately and sometimes visitors think that they are in a separate country,” he said.

“The advantage in a project of this nature is that the country situation nor adverse travel advisories will not have a negative impact when marketing KITRDP,” he said.

It is estimated that there would be over 1.6 billion international tourists in 2020 with the South Asian region expected to attract around 204 million tourists. “This is why a project such as the KITRDP has to be in place to meet this demand,” he said.

The development envisaged will be strictly environmental friendly and ecologically sound and catering to up market tourists.

The Kalpitiya Integrated Resort Project was initiated in 2003 when action was initiated to prepare a Master Plan for Kalpitiya. However action on the project got delayed due to a scarcity of initial funding required in developing the basic infrastructure prior to construction.

To address this issue and to accelerate the project, the Tourism Minister obtained Cabinet approval and the project is now on track.