PM says Sri Lanka a strategic location to attract Asian traveller

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Tuesday that Sri Lanka should focus on taking advantage of its strategic location as Asia becomes the next centre of tourism.
Addressing the tourism industry at the Cinnamon Future of Tourism Conference held at the Cinnamon Grand, he noted, “If Asia is going to be the centre of tourism” then Sri Lanka’s strategic location makes sense.
Development of the airports, ports and road infrastructure was required in attracting about five million tourists by 2025, Mr. Wickremesinghe said.
He noted that the industry needs to plan for the year 2025 as the sector has moved into a new age adding that the future of tourism is in Asia and the best of some of those wealth is going to be in Sri Lanka.
The Prime Minister explained that the country needs to think of converting the destination to be attractive all year through with the right re-branding and re-marketing of Sri Lanka.
With luxury resorts in the pipeline for Galle, Mattala and Iranawila and the opening of the Kandy city other areas to be explore for key tourism projects are the Pooneryn coast, Jaffna island for cruising and the use of the Indian ocean from Colombo to Trincomalee and Hambantota, Mr. Wickremesinghe said.
Asia is set to drive the tourism growth for which two factors have contributed to this namely the Asian economic development after the 1970s and the New Information Technology, he said adding that by 2030 the Asia Pacific region will have 500 million visitors with 75 per cent from the region.
The Prime Minister also noted that though the tourist of today is closer at your doorstep the European traveller would continue to add to the per capita spend at a higher level with millennials changing the way people do business today.
Head of Leisure at John Keells Krishan Balendran said at the conference that Sri Lanka today is on a “rapid growth trajectory.”
With over a billion people travelling the world today this figure is expected to double in ten years’ time, he noted
The Cinnamon Future of Tourism Conference, he explained has provided the platform for industry specialists and pointed out that that magnitude and reach of the event was such that it had been endorsed by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA). (SD)