Tourism report to Minister Basil Rajapaksa this week:

Hotel rooms to be doubled to 45,000 by 2016

Fourteen- pronged strategy for promoting FDIs :

Ravi Ladduwahetty

The Economic Development Ministry with the private sector will launch an ambitious programme of doubling the hotel room capacity to 45,000 by 2016 over the current 22,745 to accommodate 2.5 million arrivals by that time.

The other key objectives will be to increase foreign exchange earnings from $ 501 million in 2010 to $ 2.75 billion in 2016, increase arrivals from the current 654,000 to 2.5 million by 2016, increase the current employment of 125,000 to 500,000 by 2016, attract $ 3 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) within the next five years, contribute towards improving the global image of Sri Lanka and position the country as one of the most sought after destinations in the world.

These are some of the contents of the report titled: “Tourism Development Strategy 2011-2016” which will be presented to Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa by Ministry Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera this week.

The government to fast track the construction of hotel rooms, hopes to set up a “one- stop- shop” at the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority for tourism related investment projects with the cooperation of the Board of Investment, Urban Development Authority, the Coast Conservation Department and other line agencies which will drastically slash the transit times in obtaining approvals for investment.

The guidance for land alienation has also been simplified. The government is also clear on the strategies for Kuchchiveli and Kalpitiya.

Instead of the Tourism Development Authority attempting to develop resorts, the land will be made available to potential investors and the project will cover the entire country.

To buttress the overall growth of the industry, the report, says, there will be 14 areas for Foreign Direct Investments that the government has planned to open up.

They will be for golf courses, water parks, marinas, entertainment studios, light aircraft services and sea planes, convention and exhibition centres, gaming cities (perhaps isolated from the public and special zones), race courses, theme parks, shopping malls, adventure sports, boat manufacturing and boat hiring and taxi services.

There have been transport solutions also to lure tourists into Sri Lanka and one of the primary areas of expedited travel has been the promotion of the effective use of sea planes and given the water bodies of the country, sea planes have been deemed as the ideal solution for the high spending tourists. The SLTDA has also had discussions with Sri Lanka Railways to promote train travel by modernizing the tracks and carriages and also make the rail tracks closer to the main tourist attractions. The report also highlights some of the criteria for attracting the right type of tourists and also high spending tourists. The three primary areas that need attention are segmenting the market and identifying the right kind of tourists, marketing communication and promotion activities facilitating visits.

The compilers of the report have taken into consideration, the global arena in that it is the fastest growing industry where it grew by 6 percent in 2010 recovering from a 5 percent slump in 2009. The fact that an all time record of US$ 1,045 billion ($ 1.04 trillion has been spent by 2010 and South Asia has accounted only for less than 2 percent, has also been taken into consideration.