Travellers concerned by dengue epidemic
View(s):The dengue epidemic has raised concerns among travellers to Sri Lanka with the rising incidence of mosquito-related deaths and diseases, state tourism authorities said on Monday. Newly-appointed Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Chairman Udaya Nanayakkara told the Business Times that the number of arrivals was “a bit stagnant due to the dengue situation – so there is an element of worry.”
The government needs to take proactive measures, he said adding that these were only concerns expressed by travellers and agents and that they had not had any cancellations due to the epidemic.
Stakeholders of the tourism industry were currently engaged in cleaning up their surroundings and properties to ensure the epidemic does not hurt visitors, it was pointed out. However, Mr. Nanayakkara noted that though concerns were being addressed to them there hasn’t been a single case of a tourist getting affected by dengue.
He explained that though Galle and Trincomalee were areas of concern it was not a problem on the locations in proximity to the beach fronts. A high incidence of cases were reported from Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Kandy, Trincomalee, Kurunegala, Ratnapura and Kegalle where there were over 3000 cases reported from these areas for this year until July, according to the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health.
Tourist arrivals have been on a low with February, March and May recording drops of 0.1, 2.5 and 2.5 per cent respectively compared to 2016. April picked up with a surge in arrivals by 17.5 per cent. Last month the figure stood at 123, 351 which was a growth of 4.5 per cent compared to the same period last year. So far, arrivals have crossed the one million mark growing at 4.8 per cent compared to the first six months of last year.