Eastern tourism grows amidst noise and dust
East coast bound travellers would be able to have the holiday they deserve but construction on ongoing hotel projects have become a burden on the resorts in the area, particularly Pasikudah, a veteran hotelier said.
Chandra Wickremesinghe, Chairman of Theme Resorts & Spas (Pvt) which owns Maalu Maalu Resort and Spa in Pasikudah, was of the opinion that the hotels in the East were doing well but unprofessional work by some new individuals was the reason that the area could not be promoted as it actually deserves.
He pointed out that each hotel would carry out their own promotions and that they were in this respect, looking towards a full season in July/August.
Mr. Wickremesinghe observed that while destination promotion was required they were unable to promote the region since the area’s hotels were not fully completed.
He hit out at the unprofessional individuals operating in the hotel on the premise of constructing hotels but who were actually becoming a bother to most others due to the noise and dust pollution.
Mr. Wickremesinghe complained that most hoteliers in the area were not living up to their promises of completing their work on time leaving the others to work out their own methods of promoting the area.
In this respect, this was bound to draw a lot of flak from the rest who wanted to gear up together as an association to ensure that they would be capable of promoting the region through a proper regional representation. In fact, Dharma Dharmapala, CEO – Lanka Sportreizen – a big name in the adventure travel segment in Sri Lanka -, said they too were confident of obtaining a fair share of the guests to the area with the season about to start.
He noted that this was effectively done due to the promotions they carry out on their own and bringing down their own clients ( tourists).
However, Mr. Dharmapala observed that if the East was a more populated area then there would be greater interest by travellers since today these areas were mostly found to have barren lands with a dearth of people in the vicinity.
In this respect, going out at night was not a possible and travellers sent to Kuchchaveli had complained of being isolated in these parts.