More Sri Lankans travel East this season
With Sri Lanka’s East coast season picking up the domestic traveller segment that has turned out significantly has contributed to at least 50-60 per cent of the occupancies.
Local tourism industry continues to take interest in catering to the domestic market that currently looks “extremely positive,” with about 50-60 per cent from this segment that stimulate the market this summer, Anilana Hotels and Properties Head Asanga Seneviratne said in an interview with the Business Times.
He noted that since most people had not visited these parts of the country there was an interest by the Diaspora returning to the island to travel to the North and East. Today dependency on domestic tourists was not the norm but the result of the post conflict era that had opened the flood gates to a booming tourism industry in parts previously untraveled to, he explained. In addition, Mr. Seneviratne pointed out that the new middle class was looking at travelling and visiting the attractions within the country itself.
Moreover, the Asian market that emerged in the last five years has also contributed to increased arrivals that would continue in the future as well into Sri Lanka patronizing some of these locations.
In this respect, he believed that the concentration would be on the regional markets and the domestic tourists to add to the high occupancy levels that currently were at around 70 per cent.
Tourist Hotels Association President J. Kehelpannala told the Business Times that most domestic tourists were likely to make bookings scheduled for long weekends or during the school holidays and the staff from local companies.
He pointed out that there was a significant number within the domestic market now travelling around the country and mostly patronizing the cultural sites and wildlife parks.
Trends were observed for domestic travellers staying at resorts and bungalows as the latter has emerged in large numbers, he explained.
He also noted that the hotels “never segregated the domestic market” adding that this was always considered an important segment of tourists that had grown lately.
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