Financial Times

Comic act at Tourist Board
The Sri Lanka Tourist Board seems to have got into the entertainment business, judging by what our sister newspaper, quoting an industry veteran, has described as the comedy of errors being played out by its chief, Udaya Nanayakkara, and his erstwhile brother-in-law, Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike.

As if the public has not had enough of the petulant posturing and juvenile pronouncements of Bandaranaike, in his previous incarnation as foreign minister and prime ministerial aspirant, we now have the spectacle of conflicting claims about Nanayakkara’s role as chief of the tourist board or Sri Lanka Tourism, in its new form. For weeks now, the question on everyone’s lips was whether or not he had been re-appointed chairman of this organisation. The industry maintained that he was no longer the head of the island’s main tourism outfit, whatever it may be called. But Nanayakkara claimed otherwise.

It was funny enough for the Tourism Ministry Secretary Dr. P. Ramanujam to be unaware of the re-appointment of Nanayakkara as chairman of the Tourist Board, an institution that comes under his ministry. What was even more amusing was for the re-appointment to be announced by the PR agency, Batey, instead of the ministry. To add to the hilarity, we are now told that two members of the PR agency’s staff who made the announcement have been sacked.

Surely the public is entitled to more serious behaviour on the part of Bandaranaike and Nanayakkara and an official explanation on what exactly is going on. Neither of them has thought it fit to enlighten the public about the true state of affairs in the apex body representing one of the island’s main foreign exchange earners. After all it is the public which is paying their salaries. Nanayakkara, and Bandaranaike too, must realise that no individual, is bigger than the institution in which he serves.

There are also dark reports swirling around the trade about the business activities of Nanayakkara and contracts for interior decoration the Tourist Board under his chairmanship has given to a company in which he has interests – reports that Nanayakkara has not bothered to deny.

It is time for President Mahinda Rajapakse to intervene and sort out the confusion and uncertainty that is making Sri Lanka a laughing stock in the travel industry.

It is tragic that such a comic situation has arisen at a time the tourist industry is still struggling to recover from the devastation caused by the tsunami and the new image problems created by the shadow war started by the Tigers.
The industry says the arrivals figures put out by the government are misleading and that it is yet to recover like Thailand and the Maldives.

This is borne out by the sharp drop in earnings hotels are reporting. Hoteliers have criticised the tourist board for not doing enough to erase the negative image of the island, although the unfortunate arrival of cyclonic weather conditions has contributed to the image problem.

This country has had more than its fair share of tragedy and the antics of Bandaranaike and Nanayakkara certainly do provide good entertainment to the public in this festive season.

On a more serious note, though, if the tourism minister and the tourist board chief can’t get their act together (pun intended), they should make way for more competent people to do their jobs.

If not, tourists might think that ministerial and bureaucratic comedians are part of the traditional welcome, along with tom-tom beaters, garlands and dancing girls, that us natives lay on for foreign visitors to this fair isle.

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