Tourism: Perils of playing it by ear!
View(s):During his trip, the traveller hired an Uber taxi. However, the vehicle was intercepted by a group of men from the local “tuk-tuk” gang. They assaulted the driver and hurled profanities, all while the traveller witnessed the incident in his own eyes. In his video, he expressed his concerns:
“For me, it was a very dangerous situation. And now I’m in a bit of trouble. I’m not sure, if I really want to go back to Sri Lanka. I’m not sure. Hopefully it will change something, and they get a solution for it. I hope for it.”
Tourists play on the beach.
Harassment by “tuk-tuk” mafia
According to firsthand accounts from PickMe, a local online travel service, harassment and assault by local “tuk-tuk” gangs have become disturbingly common in Sri Lanka. These gangs block hired vehicles and coerce travellers into paying inflated fares—often four to five times the standard rate.
Despite the growing severity of these incidents, authorities continue to “play it by ear,” leaving the problem unaddressed. In recent times, PickMe riders have faced two to three such incidents daily across the country.
Within the first three months of 2025 alone, PickMe reported 63 cases of harassment and assault against its drivers—incidents impacting both local commuters and foreign tourists at popular tourist destinations. Cities such as Kandy, Galle, Sigiriya, Pidurangala, Dambulla, Anuradhapura, Puttalam, Kalkudah, Negombo, Katunayake, Udawalawe, Ella, Hambantota, Weligama, Mirissa, Ahangama, Bentota and Kalutara, are among the locations most affected, underscoring the widespread nature of the problem.
Post-COVID recovery
Sri Lanka’s tourism industry has witnessed remarkable growth, recovering from setbacks in 2018 and 2019 incidences as well as the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Tourist arrivals surged to over two million in 2024, signaling a promising rebound. The first quarter of 2025 saw over 600,000 arrivals—an encouraging start despite lingering challenges.
Although the rise in tourist arrivals is an exciting development for Sri Lanka, it is a global phenomenon. International tourism that collapsed during the pandemic time, has now recovered to pre-pandemic levels in 2024. An estimated 1.4 billion international tourists from all over the world to different global destinations were recorded in 2024, whereas during the pandemic in 2020 it was less than half a million.
According to various narratives from the media as well as from the tourists themselves, we have heard lots of good things about Sri Lanka – beaches, landscape, greenery, diversity, history, wildlife, and hospitality. International tourism organisations and international media also named Sri Lanka as one of the world’s best tourist destinations.
Two million tourist arrivals generating about US$3.2 billion income in 2024, though small by international standards, is a substantial contribution to the country’s economic recovery from the crisis. When exports are yet to grow above $12 billion value, tourism earnings cushion the foreign exchange shortage and help the accumulation of foreign reserves.
High-income travellers
France, the world’s top tourist destination country, has accommodated 100 million tourists last year, generating over $75 billion as tourist earnings. Among the Asian countries, Japan, China, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, and India all have been the major tourist destinations attracting about 20 – 40 million tourists.
There is a widely held view that Sri Lanka has failed to attract high-spending tourists, who would spend thousands of dollars a day. It is well-known that in many countries in Asia which attract high-spending tourists, they spend over $10,000 for hotel accommodation per day. In some exclusive locations, hotel rates going well above that are also not unrealistic.
Even if we keep the issue of extremely high rates of luxury accommodation aside, Sri Lanka is yet to be seen as a high-spending tourist destination in Asia. What makes a country a popular tourist destination? It’s all about the standards! The standards of facilities, services, and the people.
International ranking
In search for international standards of the supply-side of tourism services, I examined the latest edition of Travel & Tourism Development Index 2024 report, published by the World Economic Forum. Quite contrary to what we think and boast about tourism industry in Sri Lanka, we would be surprised by the findings of the report on Sri Lanka’s tourism status in the world.
It is quite strange that out of 119 countries in the world Sri Lanka is ranked at the 76th position. It means that there are 75 countries in the world that are better than
Sri Lanka as tourist destinations. While Japan and China are among the top-10 countries, Singapore, South Korea and Indonesia are among the top-25 countries. Malaysia, India, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand are all positioned above Sri Lanka.
I am sure that the Travel & Tourism Development ranking surprises us, when we boast about Sri Lanka as one of the best tourist destinations in the world. If we examine how the travel and tourism development index is made up, it’s all about the country’s “standards” in five key areas:
1. Enabling environment including business, safety, security, health, hygiene and other
2. Enabling policies and conditions including the openness of the country to travel and tourism
3. Infrastructure and services including transport and tourism services
4. Travel & tourism resources including natural resources, culture and non-leisure services that attract global visitors
5. Travel & tourism sustainability including environmental sustainability
While there are 17 indicators representing the five key areas, for most of them Sri Lanka’s score is lower. The higher score could be observed, understandably for the price competitiveness and the socioeconomic impact of tourism.
What about our natural resources – golden beaches, green lush, distinct landscape, and grand wildlife? Shouldn’t they deserve a higher score? Yes, but it is not only about the heritage of natural resources as such but also how that heritage is maintained and promoted. The same applies to cultural resources too.
Extremely poor score
In fact, Sri Lanka’s score is extremely poor in the areas of cultural resources, non-leisure resources as well as in tourist services and infrastructure. In terms of cultural resources, it is not only about the availability of Sigiriya and other archeological sites as well as cultural entertainment activities, but also how well these resources are promoted and developed.
Non-leisure resources are the facilities and opportunities available for foreigners to visit the country for various purposes other than for leisure. It is not surprising about the country’s poor score since we do not offer such facilities and opportunities for foreigners to visit Sri Lanka such as for business, healthcare and education purposes.
Sri Lanka’s tourism is limited largely to “leisure travellers”. For this reason, we must divide the 12-month time period of tourist arrivals into “peak” and “off-peak” seasons aligning with the movement of leisure travellers from the West. Non-leisure travellers do not fall under such seasonal patterns as they can visit any time of the year.
Tourist services and infrastructure measures the availability and productivity of tourism-related facilities as well as the level of investment in such facilities. How much have we invested in our tourist destinations even to provide standard toilet facilities although we keep charging exorbitant entrance fees from the foreign tourists? It is not surprising that in this area too, Sri Lanka is a poorly rated country in the world.
Be pro-active
If we expect Sri Lanka to be one of the best tourist destinations in the world, the government must play a pro-active role in all areas of concern. The ad hoc and piecemeal type interventions here and there as and when necessary is not at all considered to be a government role as such.
(The writer is Emeritus Professor at the University of Colombo and Executive Director of the Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA)
and can be reached at sirimal@econ.cmb.ac.lk and follow on Twitter @SirimalAshoka).
Hitad.lk has you covered with quality used or brand new cars for sale that are budget friendly yet reliable! Now is the time to sell your old ride for something more attractive to today's modern automotive market demands. Browse through our selection of affordable options now on Hitad.lk before deciding on what will work best for you!