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Welcome back, safe travels

06 Feb 2022

Things are looking up for tourism, as more and more tourists trickle in to experience Sri Lanka even as the world battles a new surge of Covid-19. Reports of plane loads of tourists arriving in Sri Lanka and resorts filling up are a welcome change after nearly three years of bad news and tough times for the industry. While we are far from a significant recovery – experts have suggested tourism would only fully recover in 2024 – the growing numbers are certainly injecting some much-needed optimism to an industry on which so many depend.  Beckoning tourists back to Sri Lanka amidst this pandemic is largely about building confidence. Sri Lanka’s public health response to Covid-19 is indeed a source of comfort and confidence for any tourist weighing their options; it is especially commendable that Sri Lanka was an early adopter of booster vaccines, and secured and deployed those vaccines well in time to equip its people to battle the Omicron wave. It is a pity then that the uptake of the booster has been slow; Sri Lanka is lucky that we are short on Covid-deniers, anti-maskers, and anti-vaxxers, but we’ve certainly had our share of scare mongering around the vaccines. Reports do indicate however that the growing infection numbers and campaigns to promote obtaining the booster have triggered more people to get their third shots in the last week.  Equally important to building tourists’ confidence is clarity of guidelines and information surrounding pandemic control. Across the world, there has been confusion surrounding the protocols and policies; each region and country adopting a different set of protocols and many of these, changing from one day to the next. That’s why for Sri Lanka it is important that officials speak in one voice, that there is a single source that provides clear, precise, and timely information, and that guidelines are devoid of ambiguity. Unlike in the early days of the pandemic, tourists no longer face a major threat of becoming severely ill from Covid in a strange country; instead the risk they run is of having to interrupt or lengthen their holidays with an inconvenient period of quarantine.  Two years on, it is our knowledge about the virus that allows us to be less fearful of it. But getting back to normal, especially for the tourism industry, must come with a strong sense of personal responsibility. We must know – and trust those around us – to stay home when sick and to wear quality masks designed to do the job. With a booster dose available for every eligible citizen, we have been given the best tool to ride this current raging wave of Covid-19. And as each day passes, we may now be hopeful that we are nearing the end of the pandemic phase and the declaration of endemicity.  That’s why many of Sri Lanka’s source markets are now adopting a more relaxed approach to managing the pandemic; with less stringent protocols being introduced, including the removal of mask mandates in some places. Given the sheer number of livelihoods that depend on the tourism industry, Sri Lanka must make use of this moment to attract larger numbers safely, because facilitating safe travel is better than no travel at all. Travellers are eager to travel now, more than ever, and Sri Lanka needs them back, now more than ever.


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