Sri Lankan tourism loses momentum through political turbulence

16 Nov 2018 2082 | World Travel News

A bitter political feud which led to the sacking of Sri Lanka’s prime minister has turned the clock back for the country’s travel trade just as it was preparing for a better winter season.

The crisis has led to calls from Western governments for parliamentary democracy to be restored while several travel warnings have been issued focusing mainly on European visitors.

Amid multiple political developments – including a Supreme Court decision on Tuesday to suspend a presidential order to dissolve parliament – travel industry officials said some cancellations in hotels had been reported while two conferences were believed to have been postponed.

Shiromal Cooray, managing director of Jetwing Travels, said there had been some cancellations at the group’s hotels but not on a large scale. “However, because of the crisis we have lost the momentum and don’t see many future bookings. There is a level of unease as to what will happen. The buoyancy in the industry is gone.”

Trevor Rajaratnam, president of the Travel Agents Association of Sri Lanka, said FITs and small families may rethink travel to Sri Lanka due to the confusion, but large group travel is unlikely to be affected.

An official at the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau said November-December is a lean season for conferences while a 10-day tour by 100 Spanish travel agents at end November is still on track.

But she was worried by the travel warnings which leads to either the unavailability of travel insurance or a rise in premiums.

Meanwhile, tourism promotion programmes will run as planned, according to Dushan Wickramasuriya, acting managing director at the state-run Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau.

“We had five travel writers from Germany, the UK and Poland on a fam tour during the crisis period and also a group of seven bloggers. Currently there are seven location managers from the UK scouting for good film location sites here,” he said.

Wickramasuriya added that in the last two weeks four charters from Aeroflot, TUI and Edelweiss brought more than 600 visitors. The bureau and travel industry officials were also participating in upcoming travel fairs in China and Italy.