Rethinking tourism supports for the Sri Lankan Economic recovery
S.T. Seelan
Bringing together research, policy, and entrepreneurial consulting to drive impactful results.
The tourism is one of the leading income sources and the back born for Sri Lanka’s economic development to run this country since 1948. ?This sector accounts for about 5 percent of Sri Lanka's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with Britain, India, and China being the main markets. Sri Lanka, a popular destination for holidaymakers, should be packed with tourists at this time of year. In addition to being the third largest foreign exchange earner for the country, a large number of direct and indirect employment opportunities are created by tourism, while also facilitating inflow of foreign direct investments to the country. ?Instead, an unprecedented political turmoil and economic crisis have all but wreaked its tourism with about 40 per cent of the pre-bookings being canceled recently.
After many setbacks, the tourism and hospitality sector is now beginning to see changes. Today in Sri Lanka, new changes are gradually taking place. On that basis, a new cabinet is established in the government and many exemplary measures are taken. After the establish of the new government in this country, many of the protests that were carried out by the youth have decreased. In addition, Due to many new measures of the government and assistance from foreign countries, the country's transport, health, and other major problems of the country have returned to normality significantly. That is why the domestic tourism has restarted and is helping to mitigate the impact on jobs and SMEs businesses in some destinations. Though, real recovery will only be possible when international tourism returns. This requires global co-operation and evidence-based solutions so travel restrictions can be safely lifted.
These are gaining a lot of international recognition from many agencies such as IMF, WFP, and etc. Due to this, many countries that warned against tourism in this country are now relaxing them. The country has seen gradual economic progress in a prosperous manner. For this, many international financial institutions have come forward to help and improve many backward sectors. So, Sri Lanka is now developing measures to build a more resilient tourism economy after economic and political crisis and post COVID-19. Many such positive signals have given a boost to many small and medium enterprises running the sector. So, despite these positive results, it has given hope that a good change will be brought by the end of this year.
Main challenges
The recent economic and political crisis have hit the tourism business hard, with unprecedented effects on employment and businesses.?Tourism was one of the first sectors to be deeply impacted by these crises. The sector also risks being among one of the last to recover, with the ongoing travel restrictions and the global recession. This has consequences beyond the tourism economy, with the many other sectors that support, and are supported by, tourism also significantly impacted. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to hit hard, with international tourism expected to decrease by around 80% in 2020.
Tourism industry has been growing in significance for the Sri Lankan economy, it struggled with skilled labour shortages long before COVID-19. In 2018, Malik Fernando, head of the industry body the Tourism Skills Committee, told a roomful of tourism stakeholders that the country needs 100,000 more tourism sector employees within the next three years. “Yet, we only train about 10,000 each year,” he said. Another, challenge the government’s attempt to preserve what little foreign exchange reserves it has with measures like restricting imports of food items has had a severe impact on the availability of essential goods and services. For example, the power cuts are very difficult to explain to tourists. They do empathies with our plight, but nobody wants to come on holiday and sit in the darkness and the heat if it is not resolve.
Declining demand for tourism facilities in Sri Lanka has resulted in business closures and job losses, depriving many formal and informal workers who depend on tourism of their main source of income. This includes hotel staff, independent tour guides and arts and crafts vendors. Most of all, the simple rural people who lived by selling fruits and offering bullock cart rides to tourists were the worst hit.
Tourism has very close value chain link with agriculture, transport, food and natural and they provide important inputs to the sector. Today, as the demand for international and domestic tourism declines, the sectors that provided the inputs to the tourism is now facing difficulties. Stakeholders in Sri Lanka's tourism sector must therefore make strategic and practical decisions regarding the future of tourism. Some tourism businesses cannot survive even when they are sustainable at some point in the future. The public and private sector need to gather to speedup the recovery for the battement of this sector.
Government Measures
As Cyclone Today said, Sri Lanka Tourism declares 2022 as the ‘Visit Sri Lanka Year’ in line with the integrated five-year Global Communication Campaign (GCC), aiming to attract six million tourists and USD 10 billion revenue by 2025 despite the challenges faced due to Covid, Sri Lanka’s on-going economic crisis seems to further hit its tourism industry. For this long term mission they have initiated many facilities to recover this sector soon.
Golden Paradise Visa
Sri Lanka has launched a special long term residence visa program to attract foreign investors to the island. The launching ceremony of the ‘Golden Paradise Visa Scheme’, a long-term visa program for foreign investors to invest, live and study in Sri Lanka. The cabinet has also approved the reduction of the visa fee to USD 200 for a period of one year with multiple entries to issue single entry visas for 180 days at a cost of USD 35 to tourists who obtain online e-Tourist Visas. And for a one-year multiple-entry visa permit, business license was previously charged at $685, and it has been approved by the Cabinet to reduce it to $200.
Long term residence Visa for foreign investors
The Sri Lankan government has received the Cabinet approval to issue 5-to-10-year visas for foreigners who are willing to invest at least US$ 75,000 in Sri Lanka.
SAARC countries Visa
Tourists from SAARC countries can obtain a 30-day visa via the online process for USD 20, and this fee for the tourists from other countries will be USD 35.
'Safe & Secure' certified tourism service providers
The certified service providers should display the Certificates or a copy in the common areas so that it could be easily accessed by international and domestic guests.
Sri Lanka Tourism Operational Guidelines with health protocols
Sri Lanka Tourism, in line with the guidance received from the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the World Health Organization (WHO), ensured the adoption of right measures to minimize chances of re-entry and/or community spreading of COVID-19 within the country, and to implement those measures in a manner that avoids unnecessary inconvenience to tourists and industry stakeholders.
SLTDA Emergency Fuel Request Form
Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) has requested foreign visitors to fill out a form to obtain emergency fuel in a move to ease the travelling for tourists amid acute fuel shortage and boost foreign revenue from the industry.
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Daily news said Sri Lanka Tourism has declared 2022 as the ‘Visit Sri Lanka Year’ following the integrated five-year Global Communication Campaign targeting to attract six million tourists and USD 10 billion output by 2025 in spite of the challenges posed by recent COVID spread and economic crisis facing Sri Lanka affecting the tourism industry.
Rethinking
Compared to last year, about 5 lakh tourists have arrived by the month of August this year. The Tourism Bureau has estimated that there will be 10 lakh tourist arrivals by the end of this year. With the economic collapse, countries like Britain and Australia imposed various restrictions on visiting Sri Lanka, but now they have been removed. Sri Lanka is currently in a very optimistic period. Especially at this time, the world's winter season begins. If that situation continues, Sri Lanka will become a haven for tourists.
This country faced difficult chapters such as the 1983 ethnic riots, airport attack, 2004 Tsunami, the Easter Sunday attacks, and the ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Sri Lanka too. All these incidents impacted this industry heavily with the latter being the worst.
This is not only a challenge for our country, but it has affected Asia as a whole. To recover from these, we must rethink again. That rethinking will surely build up this very weak sector.
Inclusive growth
As much as many regional rural micro and small business holders are contributing for this sector through its value chain process. The global sustainable goals with vulnerable and local community participation in the industry is an effective strategy. Thus, offering job opportunities; making them participate in tourism programmes etc. would create a source of income for the local communities. Hence, educating the general public, on why tourism is important for the country’s economic recovery should be one of the key strategies in the process of the resumption of Sri Lanka Tourism; thus the attitude of the locals will be aligned for support in tourism revival.?
Research on new market trends
Learning from the best practices is quite effective, thus it is required to observe the tourism programmes conducted by?other competitors and new market trends and try to follow them and reinvent implementable theories and policies to the industry.?
Re-energizing domestic tourism, systematically preparing people to be resilient, embracing inevitable changes, support to the tourism business by the Government are some of the measures taken by New Zealand. India also focused on purposeful research to rebuild tourism and also focused on virtual reality trips, sustainable travel certifications and eco-labelling. It says in Guyana, the Government, private sector and tourism communities worked together on four priorities as in, re-tooling the country’s tourism product, re-gaining the confidence of the tourism market, preparing for the new breed of traveller while also focusing on domestic tourism. On the face of Covid-19, North America Tourism focused on safety of travellers by reducing customer touch points by using robotics, automation and self-service kiosks and embraced Artificial Intelligence (AI) for tourism operations.
Improving traveler confidence
Sri Lanka Tourism has a vital role to play in creating the trust and confidence among travellers despite the on-going crisis with fuel, gas, power and essential food items, making sure tourists are under vigilant care and do not face any of the above issues while on tour in the country.
In addition, we need to consider the following; Skills development, destination development, promotion local and international, new products, tourism SMEs empowerment, Increasing access to?clean?water and sanitation services,?along with the promotion of good hygiene practices like hand washing,?would also help to stop the spread of communicable diseases.
References
Advocates for sustainable rural/urban development, nature-based solutions, conservation of natural resources and wildlife.
1 年Some of the unique and traditional performance especially from up-country or Indian origin tea plantation communities are gradually disappearing. But those could be attractive products in tourism sector. Recently I got an opportunity to interact with some of the experts in tourism sector. They too highlighted lack of or very poor hygienic facilities for local and international tourists when they travel long distance.