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200,000 tourists anticipated during winter season

24 Oct 2021

  • Tourism Ministry expects support from health authorities to reach target
By Imesh Ranasinghe Sri Lanka expects 200,000 tourist arrivals during the upcoming winter season from November 2021 to March 2022, with arrival numbers increasing post health guideline relaxations, The Sunday Morning Business learns. Speaking to us, Ministry of Tourism Secretary S. Hettiarachchi said that following the relaxation of the health guidelines, the number of tourist arrivals started to increase in June. Earlier, although tourist arrivals started to climb in January, by May, arrivals dropped after the Government decided to impose travel restrictions after another Covid-19 wave. However, Hettiarachchi said the numbers started to climb from June due to the removal of PCR testing requirements by the health authorities for fully vaccinated tourists upon arrival at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA). In September, Sri Lanka recorded 13,547 arrivals, while, according to Hettiarachchi, a total of 5,740 tourists arrived in Sri Lanka by 11 October. He highlighted that, therefore, tourist arrivals in October would be more than that of September. “So the target is 200,000 tourist arrivals for the winter season from November 2021 to March 2022; it is not an easy task, but at least we hope that the health sector will also support us to get the tourism sector going again,” he added. He said the health authorities allowing restaurants to operate on a limited capacity basis and allowing only rapid antigen tests (RATs) for children under 12 who are travelling to the country, increased hopes for more arrivals. The health authorities announced that from 16 to 31 October restaurants can only accommodate 30% of its capacity, or 50 customers at a given time, to dine in. The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) estimated around 85,000 tourist arrivals for 2021. However, even after considering the data given by the Tourism Ministry Secretary for the month of October, total tourist arrivals for the year passed the 40,000 mark. Furthermore, he said tourist promotions such as the World Travel Mart (WTM) London that will be held from 1-3 November and the International French Travel Mart (IFTM), would help Sri Lanka Tourism to step up again. More than 65 countries will be represented by exhibitors from across the globe next month at WTM London – the leading global event for the travel industry. Over 20 travel companies from Sri Lanka will attend the event this year. “We are expecting more tourists in the winter season from Western Europe,” Hettiarachchi said. With Air France starting direct flights to Colombo from 1 November and Swiss Air from 4 November, it would be possible to attract more Western European tourists to the country. But he noted that promoting tourism in Russia for the winter season faced issues, as many Russians were reluctant to get vaccinated, adding: “We promote (Sri Lanka to) only fully vaccinated tourists, but we allow partly vaccinated people through the air bubble.” Also, Sri Lanka is trying to promote MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) tourism with India. According to Hettiarachchi, a virtual meeting held with their Indian counterpart earlier last week allowed them to discuss plans for promoting tourism, especially MICE tourism, to the Indian market. Earlier this month, Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Finance to hold ADB’s annual meeting for 2022 in Colombo in May next year to boost Sri Lanka’s international profile and MICE tourism. Speaking on the tourism revenue targets, Hettiarachchi said that their target of $ 1 billion set by the Finance Ministry would not be achievable this year, as tourist arrivals had just started to increase. “This is a bit of a high ask. We will try to do the maximum, but I don’t think we can get $ 1 billion,” he added. According to the Central Bank’s August report, the tourism industry earned a provisional revenue of $ 33 million for January-August 2021.


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