Sri Lanka Tourism

Tourists Return to heaven Isle a Year after(prenominal) Wars End By Amantha Perera COLOMBO, May 17, 2010 (IPS) A year since Sri Lankas bloody civil war finish on May 18 ending year, phaetons ar returning in coarse numbers to a popular brim destination located oer three hundred kilometres from where the last battles were fought. Nowhere is the relief at the end of competitiveness more glaring than on the beautiful boundes of Hikkaduwa, south of the with child(p) Colombo.The war against the secessionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, fighting for a separate state for the minority Tamils, cost oer 70,000 lives in everyplace two and half decades and sent over 280,000 fleeing for their lives in its final phase. Hikkaduwa, noteworthy for its precious coral reef, sandy beaches and swanky hotels, is on the rebound. Visitors who attached the sun and the beach when bombs started going shoot set out begun to return. The best days whitethorn be still ahead of this famous t ourist destination south of the outstanding Colombo. Already, it is bracing itself for huge arrivals during the adjacent European winter lenify.Arrivals grew by an impressive 50 percent or an increase to 160,000 from 106,000 in the send-off quarter of 2010, comp bed to 2009, according to the Sri Lanka touristry information Authority, the political science agency that monitors tourist arrivals. This year, the island k nown for its scenic beauty expects over half a million tourist arrivals, making 2010 one of the best gentles in the last half a decade. We byword very honest arrival rate this season (between November 2009 and April 2010), Siri Goofreshardene, president of the Hikkaduwa Hoteliers Association, told IPS. With the war no more, travellers feel safer visiting here and in that respect were no unexpected earnest-related incidents that would have determined them away. The general manager of Coral Sands, a 75-room luxury hotel on the Hikkaduwa beach, expects demote results afterward this year when the nigh winter season starts. The bookings have been high-pitched-priced. If the trend continues the next season leave behind be definitely better than this one, says Goonewardene.He adds that operators expect about a 50 percent growth in arrivals next season. The upbeat assessment is shared by operators who run trivialer hotels and restaurants and others who depend on the tourist trade. This season was good. We had a high gear number of visitors, says Dhammika silva, who runs a clarified hotel at Mirissa, a cove-like beach south of Hikkaduwa. He depends on individual tourists who visit the Mirissa arena as his caper is too small to tie up with tour operators. I needed more people on the beach having a good duration to make ends meet. This time it happened. The same is on-key of Nimal, who sells traditional woodcarvings from a small depot near the beach. We had a very good season. I made some good sales, adds Nimal, who simply identifi ed himself by his first name.These hopes for a bumper tourist season are a far cry from the beach operators downcast mood less than 18 months back. With the war raging in the north, by the time the winter season began in November 2008, arrivals were sliding. With recompense going down, in 2008, touristry fell to number six in the countrys top exotic revenue earners from the fourth slot, accounting notwithstanding for 2. 8 percent of the gross bailiwick product. The industry supports a large workforce, some(prenominal) of it informal. According to a labour panorama conducted by the Sri Lanka Census and Statistics Department in 2007, over 100,000 were employed in the trade, 56 percent of whom were nformal employees. It was the informal employees that felt the mulct when arrivals kept going down without the security of at least a small wage packet. In early 2009, business operators like Nimal were complaining that they could not corroborate their shops open and at least make the utilities.Some decided to close shop. The downturn in arrivals due to the war attracted low spenders to the island. sylva says that many tourists from Eastern Europe and Russia began arriving in Sri Lanka when the big spenders from Western Europe stayed away. I have nothing against them. But these were reckon travellers who travel through the region. They dont spend much, he told IPS. Nimal concurs. They are not the type who buy souvenirs, let altogether expensive carvings, they will show up in the number of arrivals, but have no money. Goonewardene from Coral Sands warned that the high numbers should not be an feature that the industry has fully recovered. When the numbers are analysed, we will see that there will not be a 50 percent increase in earnings corresponding to the increase in arrivals. He says the government should launch an aggressive reality relations campaign to attract high-end spenders and portray incentives like tax breaks to the industry. The new governm ent that took office last month has brought tourism under the purview of the Economic Development Ministry, which has been tasked with accelerating development. It is an indication that tourism is to be a vital component in the new economic plans. It is good that the government is presentation signs of making tourism part of the big national plans. Whoever invests in tourism now will be making a lot of money come next season if we make the right decisions, Silva