COME ON, COME ALL

Yesterday's lead story in this newspaper about Colombo being among the world's least expensive tourist destinations should bring the pet projections of several armchair economic experts crashing down in a heap. In the past few years, there has been a concerted effort to say that Colombo is an expensive city -- or one of the most significantly exorbitant at least -- with the inference being that in Colombo, permanent residents, local visitors or tourists, rarely get value for money.

On a global and comparative scale however, Colombo compares extremely favourably with other tourist destinations as a bargain tourist Mecca, and this is where the canards of the armchair critics are well and truly exposed. Many have theorized that Colombo can draw high budget tourists and essentially no others, due to high costs. This is so laughable considering that a responsible agency collecting data on tourism thinks that Colombo is a prime tourism hotspot that is vibrant and beautiful, but is also easy on the wallet.

As for the theories propounded by the pundits about the value of high budget tourism that compares so favourably, at least according to them, against the common or garden variety, several experts who have been involved in tourism promotion in real and tangible ways, say that this is absolute bunkum. Juliet Coombe the travel writer who has several top travel publications to her name, says that we should in fact embrace children -- juvenile tourists - first, as that's where the untapped market potential lies, for a country that has seen a long tourism hiatus due to conflict, and needs to 'get on top of the game'.

Coombe told this newspaper that it is the children that lure the parents, and Colombo being a destination that's easy on the budget, the draw-card of having underage tourists, will open the gateway to the high budget tourists and many of the others that are in-between the backpackers and the boutique hotel bound high-enders.

The other important dimension that cannot be ignored is the general 'cost of living' factor. If Colombo is good for tourists, it cannot be bad for local daily wage earners, could it?

The cynics would always argue that this is not a reasonable conclusion that follows, as Colombo's daily wage earners are on Sri Lankan salaries that they would argue, have not increased for a long time.

Yet, if dollar spending tourists have it easy here, there would definitely be some corresponding correlation, and Colombo is therefore by this count, a relatively inexpensive city for everyone, tourist and Sri Lankan alike, considering that no modern city is easy on the purse, for regular commuters or permanent residents.

The point is that each time the sob story writers concoct something about the difficulties faced by ordinary people, or the allegedly bad prognosis for the future, there is without fail, some credible global agency or polling organization which comes around and gives, replete with facts and statistics, the lie to the blinkered visions of the baying pack.

Recently an HSBC delegation made almost ecstatic comments on what augurs for Sri Lanka's economy, for instance. Then, there was the Lonely Planet guide which ranked Sri Lanka the number one tourist destination in the world.

None of the above, as far as the big picture for tourism goes, should stop the top policymakers from trying to lure the high budget travellers, but it takes a bit of doing getting there, and theme tourism and high end Meccas are draw-cards that are still in blueprint stage, but will become reality in the future.

For instance, Mattala airport opening in March, will launch a brand new swathe of tourism locations in the east and that part of the country, that can, in their relative isolation be developed into high-end hotspots for the cash loaded. As they say to the weary traveler, when you take the high roads, never ignore the by-roads. High end and low end tourism should go in tandem, and that's without doubt, the only way to the future.