The celebration of Independence Day on February 4 despite the economic crisis will have a positive impact on Sri Lanka’s global tourism destination marketing image, said President the Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, M. Shanti Kumar.
Sri Lanka has been generating huge negative publicity recently with the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa due to violent street protests and subsequently a change of government. Burning of public property and houses of politicians were also highlighted in global media. This led to Sri Lanka being tarnished as an unsafe country to travel which also resulted in several ‘don’t travel to Sri Lanka’ travel advisories stamped against Sri Lanka by several countries.
Kumar said that this was a major hindrance to promote Sri Lanka Tourism globally.
He said that with the hosting of the Independence Day celebrations, firstly it will send out a message to the world that Sri Lanka is again peaceful and a safe place to travel to. “This is what the industry needs today and the government is helping our cause by hosting the independence and now we too can send out a positive message to the world that Sri Lanka is a safe destination.”
He said that the industry was also pleased to note the arrivals of over 102, 000 tourists for January 2023 which is a good start for the year. The Russian market operating with four flights arrivals per week was the top market for January accounting to 25,254 arrivals and India, UK, Germany and France followed. “Last year, we had around 719,000 arrivals with March recording the highest monthly arrival figure of 106, 500. The target is to double this in 2023.”
He said that the Chinese market is now opening up and Sri Lanka ready to accept them sans any huge COVID 19 protocols.
Sri Lanka should be able to beat this target and achieve around 2 million plus arrivals for 2023.” He said to achieve this, the country’s situation should be ‘normal’. “With arrivals picking up we can also see the tourism revenue overtaking the USD 3 million target mark set for 2023.”