US $ 2.75 billion tourism revenue target by 2016

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

Sri Lankan tourism is targetting an annual revenue of US $ 2.75 billion by 2016.

Sri Lanka Tourism Chairman Dr. Nalaka Godahewa said this figure was at around US $ 500 million mark last year.

“With the dawn of permanent peace Sri Lankan tourism has seen an average growth of 46 percent in 2009 and 40 percent last year,” he said.

Speaking at the launch of Tourism Development strategy for next five years he predicted that the leisure industry would account to around US $ three billion foreign direct investments in the next five years.

“The current room strength of 22,500 will also double in the next five years to meet the target of 2.5 million arrivals by 2016,” he said.

Dr. Godahewa also said that with these targets in place employment generation will increase from the current 125,000 to 500,000 by 2016.

He said that Asia is now poised for major growth and tourism would be a major contributor to take Sri Lanka towards being the “Wonder of Asia.”