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Minister of Tourism Prasanna Ranatunga[/caption]
“The Government and the banks cannot afford to extend the moratoriums further. We cannot keep extending moratoriums or providing new ones. We are also not in a position to permit domestic tourism as we identified two clusters at two recently held weddings,’’ Ranatunga added.
As extending financial relief to the industry is not possible, if the prevailing disruptions to the tourism industry persist, the Ministry plans to direct the tourism businesses to engage in other alternative sources of income.
Days before the detection of the second wave of Covid-19 in Sri Lanka, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) extended the moratoriums which were provided to the tourism sector of the country initially for a period of one year, following the Easter Sunday tragedy.
The CBSL requested banks to provide a debt moratorium to Covid-19-affected businesses and individuals in the tourism sector for a further period of six months commencing from 1 October 2020 to 31 March 2021. The CBSL directed the banks to amalgamate the capital and interest falling due during 1 April 2020 to 30 September 2020 with the capital and interest falling due during 1 October 2020 to 31 March 2021, except for Equal Monthly Instalment (EMI) loans for which the interest rate for the moratorium period is capped at 7% per annum.
After identifying the first local case of Covid-19 on 10 March and the subsequent closure of the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), tourism was effectively shut down.
The BIA was initially scheduled to reopen on 1 August this year and this was moved to mid-August following a surge in local Covid-19 cases. The date was once again pushed back to September after identifying several Covid-19 clusters within the country. The Government is yet to announce a date for when the airport will open to international travellers.
Nevertheless, following the lifting of the lockdown in May, hotels and tourist establishments were getting business from local travellers. Even though the revenue from local travellers is far lower than that of international tourists, local tourism was a welcome relief for the owners of these hotels to keep their businesses up and running with a glimmer of hope.
Shattering these hopes, on 4 October, Sri Lanka detected the first patient of what would later grow into its largest Covid-19 cluster that keeps expanding even up to date, and the resultant quarantine curfews have been another body blow to the domestic tourism industry.