News
Hospitality industry suffers in shutdown
With occupancy rates reaching zero, only a handful of Colombo-based star-class hotels remain open to entertain a few foreign guests, while all resorts, boutique hotels, villas, guesthouses have closed down in the island. Covid-19 has brought the hospitality industry to a complete shutdown.
President of the City Hotels Association, M Shanthikumar told the Sunday Times that out of 30 hotels in Colombo city, about 20 are closed, while a few hotels such as the Hilton, Hilton Colombo Residences, Ramada, Taj and Shangri-La are operating in order to house overseas guests trapped in the country.
“We are struggling to obtain curfew passes to transport employees to hotels. In order to smoothly run operations, the authorities should take measures to provide curfew passes to hotels. It is not easy to carry out operations during curfew,” he said.
A majority of the country’s 24 five-star hotels, 25 four-star hotels, 24 three-star hotels, 39 two-star hotels, 38 one-star hotels, 235 unclassified tourist hotels (not star hotels), 34 boutique hotels, 44 boutique villas, 1,012 guesthouses, 443 bungalows and 520 home stay units have closed their doors as uncertainty haunts a possible re-opening in the coming months.
After the Easter Sunday bombings, the number of tourists dropped from 166, 975 in April to 37,802 in May last year. But this year, the global pandemic has limited this number to just 13,784 tourists in the country at present. Most of them are unable to travel back due to the unavailability of flights and lockdowns in their home countries.
The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka lamented that with approximately 500,000 people directly and indirectly working in the hospitality industry – from hotels to restaurants, holiday homes, villas, guides, chauffeurs etc – it is the worst hit industry as it is based on interaction among people.
“Once the pandemic situation is fully under control, not only locally but also worldwide, it will take another 6-9 months for recovery. As Asian regions are on the recovery from Covid-19, the Chinese tourism market is set to thrive as Europe will be in bad shape for more than a year even after this is controlled,” a senior hotel official opined.
Hikkakuwa Hotels Association President Siri Gunewardena said all hotels, resorts, restaurants and cafes have been closed and most employees sent home with only a few essential maintenance staff retained.
“March salaries have been paid, but then some places will find it hard to pay employees for the month of April with zero income. Many hotels are already heavily indebted to banks. A subsidy to pay salaries for at least two months will uplift the morale of employees,” he said.
Saliya Dayananda, President of the Cultural Triangle Hotels Association told the Sunday Times, that all 25 star class hotels in Dambulla, Habarana, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa have been closed indefinitely and employees sent home. “Villagers have been threatening and ill-treating hotel employees demanding them to go into self-quarantine,” he said.
“When this pandemic is under control, the government should take measures to promote cultural places in the country. Most employees are from the villages nearby where food scarcity is not a major problem as cultivation and farming is allowed,” he added.