Tourism industry to generate more employment

Nethali STRUYS

Estimates have shown that by 2016 the tourism industry will be capable of creating 500,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities and this will be a huge benefit to overcome the unemployment problem, according to the Economic Development Ministry.

This will be in the form of 225,000 direct employment and 275,000 indirect employment. Last year, the total number of employees in the tourism industry was 125,000. Out of this 55,000 constituted direct employment whiles 70,000 were indirect employment.

Around 375,000 depend on the tourism industry and the total income is around USD 410 million. By 2016, these dependents will increase up to 1,500,000 and the total income up to USD 2.75 billion. Arrangements are in place to provide training in this respect which is vital to the tourism industry. Children of Samurdhi beneficiary families will also be recruited to these training programmes.