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Sunday, 23 August 2009

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Air Asia entry - Healthier outlook for tourism

Air Asia officially celebrated the launch of its daily direct flights between Colombo and Kuala Lumpur last week. The first flight, 180 seaters A320 took off from LCC terminal of Kuala Lumpur airport on August 15. The official celebration held in Colombo Hilton consisted of cultural events of Malaysia and Sri Lanka and attended by ministers and top officials of both the governments and Air Asia.

The low cost airline launched its flights in June and officials said that over 30,000 seats have already been booked. The group CEO of Air Asia, Tony Fernandes said that through the new service Air Asia is bringing people from all over the world to Sri Lanka. Due to our low cost service now every one can fly and Sri Lankans living in Malaysia, tourists of both countries and other parts of the world and investors and business travellers will benefit.

The tourism industry sector too is hopeful of a rapid increase in tourist arrivals in the near future. The end of the three decade civil war has created environment for the tourism industry to recover and reach its true potential. "New connectivity between Colombo and Kuala Lumpur created by Air Asia low cost airline will help the tourism industry in Sri Lanka to reach the target 2.5 million tourist arrivals by 2016, said the Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism, Bernard Goonetilleke.

After the security situation in the country improved the tourism sector started to recover and we expect an increase in tourist arrivals in the coming months. Already we have seen the progress and in July there is a 28 percent increase in tourist arrivals compare to July last year, he said. However, 2.5 million target is a challenge because we have to develop the infrastructure to cater to the increasing demand. At present we have only 14,000 rooms and we have to add another 36,000 rooms minimum to achieve the target. Also good accessibility new air lines, and increase the frequency of existing airlines are also needed, he said. (GW) Pix by: Wimal Karunathilake

 

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