The single biggest threat the Sri Lankan hospitality industry may face will be the lack of trained staff, The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) President Jayantissa Kehelpannala said during the association’s Annual General Meeting held this week.

“We will seriously need to see how we can halt the current shortage of staff. As more hotels open, competition among hotel operators, workers choosing to seek jobs overseas and a lack of suitably trained employees will put enormous pressure, and this could be the single biggest challenge the hospitality industry may face,” he said.

He further said the hotels will have to spend more money on marketing, to attract new workers and take on the costs of training them.

Kehelpannala also highlighted the need for international tourism sector related schools in the country.

“While we support our own Institute of Tourism and Hospitality Management School to be world class, we need to attract more tourism-related, internationallyacclaimed schools to be set up in Sri Lanka. Unless this is done soon, having more hotels with a lack of experienced workers is bound to be a big squeeze on profitability for the industry.” He also foresaw increasing global competition, especially from the neighbouring countries in the region attracting growing numbers of tourists.

“Therefore, if we want to take our place as one of the world’s leading tourist destinations, we need to provide “oxygen” to hospitality businesses.” THASL President also noted practical impact assessments, balanced legislation, reduction of red tape, competitive energy tariffs, improved access to finance and lower taxation as essential ingredients of a recipe for speedy growth.

“We must continue our focus to improve on our current base and help take a quantum leap for the betterment of our industry,” he added.

In attendance at the event was Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism, Bashwara Gunaratne. Addressing the gathering, Gunaratne reiterated the government’s commitment towards the accelerated development of Sri Lanka’s tourist sector. “With the eradication of terrorism from Sri Lanka, the country is now experiencing huge developments in many sectors including tourism and infrastructure and we are very confident that going forward we can achieve our targets of 2.5 million tourist arrivals by 2016,” Gunaratne stated.

Tourist arrivals increased by 13.2 percent Year-on-Year (YoY) to 438,653 arrivals during the first 5 months of 2013 while revenue generated by the sector expanded by 21.9 percent to US$ 484.3 million during the same period.