Financial Times

Point of View
Tourist arrivals – must we blow our trumpets?
By Pani Seneviratne
“The truth is out there”, says the blurb introducing the TV mystery thriller, “X-Files”. This is an invitation to unravel the truth behind each episode from a maze of conflicting data. The truth, indeed, may not be easy to fathom. This is characteristic of statements issued by some government authorities concerning their own performance.

The Tourist Board is no exception. The Sunday Times FT on June 12 revealed the truth behind the post-tsunami “rebound in tourist arrivals”. Aid workers, donors, project planners and reconstruction workers, we learn, largely contributed to the increasing numbers of arrivals after February 2005.

Although tourism officials were emphatic that the increased numbers were of overseas origin and even boosted hotel occupancy rates, it would be a mistake to encourage any substantial investments in new hotel rooms on the basis of a temporary phenomenon.Last year there was a great deal of fanfare over another dubious achievement: tourist arrivals reaching the landmark figure of half-a-million. Was there any justification for shouting from the roof-tops about this? None at all. For, the Tourist Board’s own Research Division had projected tourist arrivals to reach half-a-million as early as 1984.

The year 1982 had recorded 407,230 visitors. So 500,000 in 1984 seemed feasible. That was not to be! Came the ‘Black July’ riots of 1983 when Tamil residents of Colombo were subjected to physical harassment and their property was looted. Policemen and soldiers turned their backs on what was going on in the streets because 14 of their own men had been blasted to death in northern Lanka. There was no human rights watchdog to summon the forces chiefs so as to get their men to act.The country’s reputation as a friendly destination was blown to dust. Visitor arrivals plummeted until 1987 to reach a low of 182,000. Getting back to the original 400,000 was a long, hard climb – sometimes just getting there but slipping back.

In 2003, almost twenty years after the date when tourist arrivals were projected to reach the magic figure of half-a-million, the figure did hit the mark with a total count of 500,642 arrivals. But there does indeed seem to be some hoodoo over this half-million target. ‘The exultation over this ‘achievement’ could not last. December 26, 2004 brought the tsunami that washed away most of the tourism assets and infrastructure on the coastline. The beach being the most important asset that originally attracted tourists from the West, stories about an immediate rebound had to be fiction.
Compare our own story with the way some Asian neighbours have performed during the 20 years between 1983 and 2003.

The contrast between the performance of Sri Lanka and the other four destinations is quite evident. India has doubled its arrivals from one million to two million during the period.

Both Malaysia and Thailand have progressed from two million to ten million arrivals. Another small state, Singapore has improved its arrivals from two million to six million. There is no need to comment on Sri Lanka’s performance. We should not be seen to blow our own trumpet unless the truth is plain to see.

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