Tourism to record 20 percent growth

Harshini Perera

Five parties have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) to lease land in Kuchchaveli while leasing land for the Kalpitiya Integrated Tourism project is still in progress.

Local people initially need to understand the value of historically important places and try to save them for posterity.

This will take the tourism industry a long way, Economic Development Deputy Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said announcing the UNWTO joint meeting for South Asia and East Asia and the Pacific.

He said the growth of the tourism sector is expected to be 20 percent higher during the end of 2011. The number of tourists to the country will exceed 900,000.

“We expect that the room capacity will be increase as expected by 2015,” he said.

“We are currently concentrating on product development and we have seen an increase of 444 rooms from 2010 to February 2011. There will be 1,000 hotel rooms added to the available capacity by the end of this year,” Sri Lanka Tourism Chairman Nalaka Godahewa said.

The Ramayanaya route promotion has received 10,000 tourists since its launch in Sri Lanka and at present many private companies are promoting the product.

He said there will be 11 international media personnel promoting Sri Lanka in their countries.