Sri Lanka Tourism is confident that the target of attracting around 2.3 million visitors by the end of this year could be achieved given the current and the expected growth in the hotel occupancy rate.
Currently hotel room occupancy is around 65 percent in most city hotels.
However, city hotel operators said they expect the number of visitors to increase in the coming months to record a satisfactory room occupancy rate. Stiff competition from new properties that have emerged in the city is affecting individual hotel room occupancy rates.
Speaking at the launch of Cinnamon Future Tourism Summit 2017 in Colombo last week Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Chairman Udaya Nanayakkara said that the tourism industry will achieve its arrival target this year. “The flight seat occupancy is currently high and hotel bookings are at a satisfactory level. We could easily surpass the target set for this year,” Nanayakkara said.
However, industry experts said the socio political environment is not so conducive to attract foreign visitors. The regular street protests impeding transportation, the drought hitting most parts of the country and heat concerns have impacted the arrival rates negatively.
Despite all odds, the industry is determined to be the leading foreign exchange earner by 2020 surpassing other sources of foreign exchange. Foreign remittances from expatriate workers dominate the foreign exchange earnings of the country.
The tourism industry expects by 2025 Sri Lanka to be identified as a place for memorable, authentic and diverse tourism experience. Identified as the third net foreign exchange earner in the country the industry has set target to earn US$ 7 billion by 2020 opening up job opportunities for over 600,000 locals and increasing the daily spend by visitors to US$ 210.
The second edition of the Cinnamon Future of Tourism Summit will host 14 innovators of the travel industry who will share their expertise on technology, authenticity and innovation to achieve the country’s development goal.
The summit will be curated by Founder Swiss Hospitality Solutions (SHS) Wilhelm K Weber featuring Executive Editor CNN Travel Brekke Fletcher , Brand Ambassador TrendOne Rene Massatti, Head of Creative Innovations TrendOne Sebastian Rassmann and Director of Research and Innovation at Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management Dr. Sanjay Nadkarni. The speakers will present their findings on topics such as understanding tomorrow’s traveller, technology of the future-tech showcase, use of customer data for innovation, changing future hospitality landscape to make hotels profitable, role of brands in future hospitality marketing and future of Chinese outbound tourism and opportunities in Sri Lanka.
Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts Leisure Sector President Krishan Balendra said there was tremendous response during the first summit in 2015 and added that this year there is an increased interest from industry to be a part of the event. The first summit focusing on responsible travel for driving revenue was attended by over 300 participants.