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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