New Tourism Minister meets with diplomats, industry veterans to revive hard-hit sector

Tourism Minister Harin Fernando in discussions with Colombo-based diplomats

In an effort to help the hard-hit tourism sector recover from the ongoing economic crisis and move to a path of revival, the Tourism Ministry has made an appeal to the source markets to consider reversing the currently placed travel advisories.

The newly-appointed Tourism Minister Harin Fernando met with the diplomatic community this week to discuss and explore options as to how the forex-generating sector can be uplifted.

One of the key areas of discussion in this regard was lifting any travel bans imposed and reversing the strong travel advisories issued by the key markets such as the United Kingdom and Australia, among others.
Fernando also met with the veterans of the tourism sector separately this week to explore the avenues that would help iron out the ongoing issues in the industry.

Over the recent weeks, the private sector stakeholders have shared with Mirror Business that the main issue faced by the industry at present is the inability to operate smoothly, due to the ongoing power cuts and the shortage of key ingredients for the food and beverage operations. 

The shortage of fuel has added to the woes of the sector, as tours cannot be carried out effectively, disrupting the travel plans of tourists.

Since the turmoil in the country escalated and the sudden declaration of state of emergency, the number of visitors to the country dipped significantly, breaking the positive trend witnessed in the first few months of the year.
For the month of April, tourist arrivals fell by about 40 percent when compared with the previous month, as March welcomed over 100,000 tourists.

The arrival numbers for the month of May are so far not known, as the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) has stopped sharing the weekly updates on the number of arrivals.