• Also claim that restoration of same during outages/cuts takes days    

Tourism service providers urged the relevant authorities to ensure the uninterrupted provision of basic services such as water and electricity to tourist areas where such facilities are lacking.

At a press briefing held yesterday (27), All Ceylon Small- and Medium-Scale Tourism Entrepreneurs’ Association Chairperson Sameera Senaka De Silva said that while the water and electricity supply to some areas is lacking, it takes a long time to restore water and electricity supply outages in some areas, sometimes days. He opined that these issues have adversely impacted small- and medium-scale tourism service providers as they have to provide additional services to tourists during these outages.

“In such situations, both tourists and small- and medium-scale tourism entrepreneurs are inconvenienced. At a time when plans are being made to create a sustainable tourism sector, the responsible authorities’ attention should be paid to facilities for tourists,” he said, adding that Sri Lanka should go beyond merely counting the number of tourists entering the country and devise a proper plan to ensure that tourists are provided with facilities and safety.