Top tour spots tumbling

By Yasas Mendis

The tourist industry in the southern coastal belt has suffered a severe setback with some small time hoteliers and service providers badly affected.

Thousands of families in the south who depend on the industry have also been affected. Small time tour operators and hoteliers from Bentota to Unawatuna who have registered themselves with the Tourist Board, are facing a lean period.

Hotel owners attribute this situation to negligence by Tourist Ministry officials. According to them the Unawatuna and Hikkaduwa areas which were once teeming with foreigners are today a sorry sight.

Tour drivers, food suppliers and handloom cloth sellers whose business thrived once face financial difficulties today. Many self employed people too are in difficulty today.
Some hoteliers who took loans to give a new look to their buildings, are facing difficulties in paying back loan instalments.

Nelson Dias, a hotel owner in Hikkaduwa said there were few tourists in Sri Lanka today thus causing much loss to those employed in the tour trade. The tour packages undertaken by tour companies brought much foreign exchange then but today it is limited. But if that system was halted small hoteliers would benefit, according to him. The road from Colombo to Galle has to be improved, he said.

G. Chandana Pradeep, who runs the Madu Ganga boat service in Balapitiya said he commenced this service a decade ago and his clients included foreigners as well as locals who came in large numbers for boat rides. But since the end of last year their numbers had come down badly.

He has ten boats and each did 15 to 20 trips daily, but not so today. Around 100 families in the vicinity too are facing lean times due to the dwindling numbers of visitors now.

Two incidents attributed to the present impasse are the terrorist attack on the Galle harbour and the bus bomb at Kahawa, he said.

Chandana de Silva said that due to the collapse of the tour trade he was unable to pay the salaries of his boatmen while Mrs. Seela Gunawardene of Hikkaduwa said during the past 25 years she made good money by selling items sewn by her. Her daily earnings had topped the Rs. 10,000 mark. She too attributed the recent incidents and the tsunami to the downfall of the trade.
The few foreigners seen today are only those who have been habitual visitors here, she said.

Pradeep Kumara turned out woodcraft items for the last two decades targeting foreign tourists, as those items had no local market. However, the tsunami was a spoiler while the Galle Port attack and the bus bomb at Kahawa damaged the tourist industry further, he said. Today it is a problem to pay his workers, he lamented. He blamed Tourist Board officials for not improving the situation.

Small hotel owners association president T. Harischandra said in Galle district alone there were over 200 hotels which were well patronized even after the tsunami. According to him the terrorist attacks reduced the numbers by 75%. He too blamed the package system and accused the State of not helping the hoteliers in spite of heavy taxes levied on them. He also adduced the downfall in tourism to negligence by Tourist Ministry officials and asked why the Government was not taking action against them.