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| Sunday, 28 September 2003 |
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Tourism to get huge boost by Chanuka Mannapperuma Sri Lanka is targeting 500,000 tourist arrivals by the end of the year, a 25 per cent increase over last year. The reasons attributed for this increase are the prevailing peaceful atmosphere, visa on arrival policy and promotions by SriLankan Airlines. Minister of Tourism Gamini Lokuge, announcing the new vision for Sri Lanka Tourism and the strategic development plans for tourism, said they hope to increase arrival figures to one million by the end of the decade. He said the best market for Sri Lanka is India while the second and third best markets are UK and Germany, which saw an increase of over 25 per cent compared to last year. The island presently has 13,500 hotel rooms, which is not sufficient to cater to the growing demand. "Therefore, we hope that the private sector will come forward with investments to increase the number of hotel rooms," he said. He added that they have plans to develop tourism in the North and East as well. "We are in the process of preparing a Cabinet paper which will halt all unauthorised structures being built along the North and East coastal line. "An average tourist presently spends around US$ 60 per day and plans are underway to increase this to US$ 100". The Minister said that since 95 per cent of the investment will be made by the private sector, it is necessary that the private sector drives the promotion and marketing of Sri Lanka tourism while the human resource sector too has to be planned according to the needs of the sector. The Sri Lanka Tourist Board will be split into three divisions - Development Council, Tourism Promotion and Marketing Bureau and Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management. The Development Council will regulate and plan development projects, the Bureau will handle the destination promotion and marketing of Sri Lanka while the Institute will develop the human resources. The latter two will be managed by the stakeholders in the industry and will be operated as companies. Secretary Ministry of Tourism, Dr P. Ramanujam said US$ 60 million will be spent on infrastructure development next year. The Government is hoping to obtain a soft loan from the Japanese government this year to develop infrastructure. The country would be divided into five zones in line with the BOI regional economic zones, and plans are afoot to set up five regional offices in the BOI zones to implement this programme. SriLankan Airlines Head of Commercial G.T. Jeyaseelan said the national carrier spends Rs 500 million each year to promote Sri Lanka as a destination. |
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