Travellers to stabilise depreciating rupee
The government on Friday said that tourism is crucial to the economy that is expected to help in the stabilisation of the rupee with the growing number of arrivals in the face of the current financial crisis.
“Tourism is very important for Sri Lanka particularly with the financial crisis,” Tourism Development Minister John Amaratunga said on Friday at the inauguration ceremony of the fourth Tourism Leaders’ Summit and International Tourism Research Conference Sri Lanka 2018 held at the BMICH in Colombo.
The minister said that if more tourists were to visit the country it could help bring back the value of the rupee against the dollar.
With a number of MICE events organised for next year and targeted promotional campaigns planned, Minister Amaratunga pointed out that Sri Lanka would be in line to welcome four million visitors by 2020.
He explained that if Cambodia could easily attract five million visitors, Sri Lanka could do well to attract four million with the vast amount of tourist attractions available in the country.
The minister also pointed out that a number of local companies have agreed to fly to Palaly, Anuradhapura and Trincomalee that would ensure the opening up of a number of airstrips to create connectivity in quick time.
He expressed concern that SriLankan Airlines had pulled out of flights to Europe creating a big setback in connectivity for tourists.
Minister Amaratunga noted that the government is currently discussing with other operators from Europe to fly to Colombo to re-establish connectivity between the two regions.
Higher Education Minister Wijedasa Rajapakse spoke of the sustainable tourism and its advantages and observed that tourism was today the engine of growth of most economies of the world.
He detailed how Third World countries were today interested in international tourism and believed that more could be gained by developing luxury goods and importing the same for boosting this sector within their economies.
It also creates all signs of empowerment and in the long run the people of respective destinations should work to conserve their environments and protect them, he said.
Keynote speaker and Chair-Elect of the Parliament of the World’s Religions and Trustee Audrey Kitagawa explained that religions are often blamed for creating most human rights crimes.
In this respect she pointed out that it was their duty to create a new paradigm with ways of peace adding that about 90 per cent of the world’s population was believers.
She pointed out that religious tourism was a part of travel and noted that religion and spiritual communities living in harmony should work on reconciliation and engage in it as part of their duty to move through life.
Volt Lab Regional Google Trainer Founder Akvile Pareigyte addressing the gathering noted that there were a number of statistics that Sri Lanka could go by that would ensure they could be attracted by their consumers.
She pointed out that websites particularly the mobile websites should open up in about three seconds failing which most consumers would move out.
It was pointed out that Sri Lanka was one of the top ten searches for safaris and also among the top wedding destinations of the world in addition to job related queries.
Ms. Pareigyte explained that with Sri Lanka’s digital marketing campaign set to get underway it is assumed that there could be lot of changes.
The summit was organized by the Alumni Association of Tourism Economics and Hospitality Management (AATEHM) and the Tourism Study Programmes, Department of Economics of the Colombo University.