Financial Times

Udaya continues as tourist board chief despite protests
The crisis in the tourism industry triggered by the refusal of Tourist Board chairman Udaya Nanayakkara to quit continued last week despite repeated demands by the two main trade bodies for his removal.

Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike, whom the industry has been seeking to meet for more than a month but has not been given a date, was backing Nanayakkara in the job in spite of conflicts in the past. “It appears that with their benefactor (former President Chandrika Kumaratunga) out of office, both are in the same boat of uncertainty and now leaning against each other for support,” one industry source said.

The industry is also awaiting the formal notification to establish the Tourism Development Authority which should function from January 2006. But so far Bandaranaike is yet to even consider the names proposed by the industry to serve on various committees under the new authority.

The Joint Tourism Council representing the two major tourism associations, the Sri Lanka Hoteliers Association and the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators, wrote to President Mahinda Rajapakse soon after his election victory and proposed the names of Ken Balendra, Lalith de Mel, Dr P. Ramanujam and R. Sivaratnam to chair the Tourism Development Authority, Tourism Promotion Bureau, Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management and Convention Bureau, respectively, under the new Act.

In that letter, the council also said outgoing chairman of the Tourist Board Nanayakkara didn’t have the confidence of the council as he had openly criticized the Act which the industry had lobbied for many years. The council had sought a meeting with the President.

In a subsequent letter to the President, the council also proposed the names of Vijaya Malalasekera, former director - CTC, Sherrard Amalean, Deputy Chairman-MAS Holdings, Saliya Wickremasuriya, former BOI chairman, Amal Cabraal, Director-Unilever, Rohantha Athukorala, Director-NCED, Ravi Fernando, MAS Holdings, Ranjith Wijewardene, Dept of Tourism – Rajarata University, W.K. Gnanapala, Senior Lecturer, Hospitality – Sabaragamuwa University and M. Haniffa Ishak, ex chairman- Sri Lanka Convention Bureau for the above positions.

Industry sources said the minister – without calling the two associations -- had instead invited the heads of tourism companies for a meeting on Friday to discuss the proposed names.

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