Lankans patronise hotels, foreign bookings pushed to 2021
Sri Lanka will see a revival of the tourism industry by January next year since bookings even after August seem to be getting postponed amid a surge in local demand.
The industry believes that the authorities need to engage in bilateral ties with the respective markets in a bid to attract travellers to the country. Authorities have stated that they hope to open the country for foreign visitors from mid-August.
Those arriving in the country would be subject to PCR testing and in this respect industry veteran Chandra Wickremesinghe told the Business Times that initially there could be reluctance on the part of travellers.
Agents in other markets have indicated that most bookings would be rescheduled for next year and that there is uncertainty for December arrivals, he noted.
With schools commencing in September most families in European markets are unlikely to travel during this time and would only want to move out during the Christmas holidays.
Mr. Wickremesinghe pointed out that since these markets are now asking their citizens to consider options of travelling within the country or within the EU there is a growing concern that arrivals are unlikely to happen any time soon.
Moreover he explained that there are concerns among travellers of contracting the virus while on holiday and in this respect going back home is also likely to cause issues.
Chinese travellers have started to move within their own country and most of the industry seems keen to attract them back to Sri Lanka as they one time generated the highest arrivals to the destination. However, Beijing has reported a second wave and even some of the EU countries too have expressed concerns of a similar pattern observed there as well.
However, on the contrary there are a growing number of locals touring the country with most weekends finding hotels getting booked and in fact tourism has revived in this context.
Hotels are offering slashed prices to entice more Sri Lankans to travel and this has increased footfall to these places including other tourist attractions like the Minneriya national park.
Mr. Wickremesinghe noted that they have had to hire an increased number of jeeps in a bid to accommodate the growing demand for travel to the park by locals as they continue to patronise the hotels.
This has become a global trend as well, as more people are today found to be travelling within their own countries and few venturing out except for essential travel in view of the restrictions placed by the different destinations as per quarantine rules.