‘ Tourism reaps benefits of peace’:

Hill capital must be given pride of place

by Shirajiv Sirimane

Tourism would crash in to reach the top spot to become the highest foreign exchange earner and the Kandy district would play a prominent role in this drive by feeding the highest revenue towards it.

Minister of Tourism Promotion, Minister Faiszer Musthapha speaking to Sunday Observer said that in addition, Kandy district would also produce the highest number of employees needed to meet the tourism boom expected in 2011 with President Mahinda Rajapaksa declaring year 2011 as ‘Visit Sri Lanka’.

The Minister said that he had seen the future potential in the industry few years ago and made plans to train the youth to meet the future demands through the Hotel School in Kandy. “I have initiated a project to train over 10,000 youth at this school,” he said.

Since the industry was on a downward last year the Minister had launched a scheme to send over 1,500 students for employment in the star class hotels in the gulf with better salaries.

With the end of the 30-year-old conflict, tourism, the first industry to reap the benefits of peace. “Sri Lanka has now on offer 17, 000 star class rooms and we have estimated that another 33,000 are needed in the next two years to meet future demands. “One could also see a construction boom connected to the tourism industry.”

Minister said that while the rooms were being added, nearly 100,000 youth will be in demand to serve them and plans are a foot to increase the intake of the Kandy Hotel School.

He said that due to social taboos women still have second thoughts of joining the industry but now programs have been initiated to woo more women to the trade.

Mohamed Faiszer Musthapha had his secondary education at Royal College, Colombo and is an Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. He also obtained his Master of Laws in Commercial Laws from the University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom.

Working very closely with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, he won the latter’s confidence, and which resulted in his being appointed as the Special Presidential Coordinator for the Kandy District. He was the Vice Chairman - Sri Lanka Land Reclamation and Development Corporation (2002 - 2003), Vice Chairman - National Housing Development Authority (2003 - 2004) and is currently a Member of Public Accounts Committee of Parliament and a Member of Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE).

Q: What is your future vision for Kandy District?

A: My prime objective is to empower youth and give them better living standard by offering them a high income generation employment. To meet this goal, English and IT knowledge is a must.

I have taken steps through my Foundation to provide computers to rural schools and also have recruited more English teachers in schools. My ambition is to see that there is an IT lab and an English teacher to each and every school in Kandy by 2011.

The best investment that Sri Lanka can make today is education. With both the knowledge of IT and English the youth can, not only gain employment in the tourism but also in any industry. With the implementation of the Mahinda Chintana more wealth would be created.

Q: What are the grey areas of Kandy city development?

A: Some of the main concerns are the traffic congestion, garbage disposal and pollution. Due to threat of pollution there is also a fear that the world heritage tag for Kandy may be withdrawn. I am now working closely with the Deputy Mayor to bring about a permanent solution to this.

With new roads and a new traffic plan in place, traffic congestion in Kandy, would soon be a thing of the past.

New garbage dumping venues were being explored while new techniques in recycling would be introduced to iron out this problem.

Q: What are your plans to develop tourism in Kandy?

A: The main attraction in Kandy is the Dalada Maligawa and the annual Kandy pageant. Over the years I have being taking care of sanitation and to provide drinking water during the Perahera period.

Each year more facilities are provided to make the viewing of the perahera more comfortable and these efforts have come for high praise.

In addition I have also initiated programs to improve infrastructure of other places of interest and worship such as the Saman Devala Development Project, Renovation of Kadugannawa Ambalama, Meeramakkam Mosque Centre, Media Centre at Sri Dalada Maligawa, Kundasale Pilgrims Rest, Bambaragala Raja Vihara and Elawathura Muslim Assembly.

Since I believe that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala Buddhist country and therefore we have to utilize our resources to see how we can develop the Buddhist historical and archaeological sites in and around Kandy that will attract foreign as well as local tourists.

I am also adding more infrastructure to the Muslim schools and their places of worship.

Q: What are your plans to involve the Gulf for tourism development?

A: The Gulf with millions of expatriates and its residents is a very good market. Unfortunately this market was overlooked and I took the initiative in the last three years to develop this segment which has very high spending tourists. I also introduced a new brand strategy to the Middle East market, highlighting the effective eradication of terrorism which has been a key drawback in developing the country as a tourist destination during the last 25 years.

As part of the communication campaign, many promotion campaigns, road shows, and press conferences have been planned across fifteen cities in ten countries - a move that is expected to attract and generate more tourist arrivals into the island.

Today the Gulf arrivals have increased by more than 120 percent and an asset to the industry. This is the first time a 3 digit growth figure was registered in the history of Sri Lanka Tourism.

“The objective of Sri Lanka Tourism’s re-branding exercise was to create a single core idea that can change people’s perception of the country.”

We also launched country specific campaigns in India, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to run for a period of two to three months and subsequently extend to Japan with the assistance of JBIC (Japanese Bank for International Cooperation) and also China.

The overall inbound tourism figures have seen a marked improvement with increasing trends recorded month on month.