A leading Sri Lankan origin leisure brand with investments overseas has decided to pull out of the Minimum Room Rate (MRR) scheme that is being implemented among Colombo city hotels.
Having one of the largest star class room inventories in Colombo, this hotel chain has forwarded a letter to Sri Lanka Tourism indicating their desire to move away from the MRR.
Sri Lanka is the only country in the world that implements a MRR system and the hotel chain has indicated that ‘room rates’ should be decided on a supply and demand situation.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe had said that the MRR should be scrapped and market forces should decide the rates.
Minister of Tourism at a recent media briefing said that the MRR was created to achieve an objective and this has been achieved. “Hence we will remove the MRR from May 31,” he said. – SS
