Hotels ready for season

Sanjeevi JAYASURIYA

The country’s tourism industry is continuing its growth momentum maintaining the upward trend in tourist arrivals.

Tourist arrivals in October recorded 52,370 an increase of 39.38 percent compared to last year’s 37,575 arrivals.

The September arrivals too recorded an increase. The arrivals recorded were 47,339 and 37,983 respectively recording a 24.6 percent increase.

The industry will be able to meet the estimated number of tourist arrivals for 2010 and even could surpass the projected number. There is a 30 to 40 percent cumulative increase of arrivals year on year basis, Tourist Hotels Association Sri Lanka President Anura Lokuhetti told Daily News Business.

“The country will experience a significant winter season. The response from charter operators and tour operators who participated at the recently concluded World Travel Mart is encouraging. They were very keen sending tourists to Sri Lanka,” he said.

The country needs to be ready to face the influx of tourists. The priority should be to increase the room capacity as there could be a major demand increase in the months to come.

The other aspect is the upgrading of existing hotels. The hotels need to be modernized to suit current requirements.

“The tourism industry will be the main engine of growth with the increasing world travel trend.

We need to be competitive and the industry growth will also facilitate by the accelerated infrastructure development that is taking place,” Lokuhetti said.