Tourism sector upbeat on winter season

Sanjeevi Jayasuriya

The tourism industry will record a marginal growth in the winter season despite the global recession that is affecting the tourism generation markets, an industry expert said.

"We are looking forward to the winter season. However, it will not be a fantastic season due to the economic recession and other factors. This calls for an aggressive promotional campaign to attract potential tourists," Jetwing Managing Director and PATA Chairman Hiran Cooray told Daily News Business.

"A comprehensive promotional effort as a PPP will have positive results as the current promotional and marketing mechanism need some vigour," he said. Sri Lanka is mainly a beach destination and we cannot be complacent on promoting European countries as they are our prime market.

Though regional tourism is essential we need to attract European tourists also for income generation. The promotional campaigns should create more hype as winter bookings are not fantastic, Cooray said. Tourist arrivals topped 72,000 in August continuing its growth momentum further which recorded an increase of 29.6 percent compared to last August. Majority of visitors were from European countries.

The cumulative figure of tourist arrivals for the eight months of this year was 537,787, an increase of 35 percent over the corresponding period last year.