'Scarcity of female workers, challenge to tourism'

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

The presence of female workers in the hotel and tourism industry in Sri Lanka is low and it will be a major challenge for the tourism industry in the future. Aitken Spence General Manager HR Amal Nanayakkara told Daily News Business.

He said it is necessary to make several steps to overcome this problem at a time the country is expecting a tourism boom by 2016.

There are a lot of lucrative opportunities for women as it is going to be a billion dollar industry in time to come but the attitude of Sri Lankan people has to be changed about women working in this industry. For women, working in a hotel in Sri Lanka is much safer and profitable rather than going to work in an unknown country a , culture and people.

He said even the majority of kitchen staff are men and there are many vacancies in house keeping departments. "The industry will be progressive if more women join this sector," he said.

Nanayakkara said the Sri Lankan smile is very popular in the world but that alone is not enough to attract visitors. A high quality service must be there continuously and this is lacking in some areas because people are not going into details sufficiently. "Lack of entertainment outside Colombo, communication barriers and shortage of skilled manpower were other challenges that has to be overcome" he said.