Sustainability Pays

Sustainable Tourism may not necessarily be a byword as exemplified by an official at a function in Colombo on Wednesday.
Dr. Nalaka Godahewa, Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourism, drawing an analogy from the garment industry said that at the height of that sector’s boom there were a thousand factories in operation.
That was in the 1980s when the quota system was there. Most factories operated as sweatshops with poor worker conditions. But they made a lot of money. However a few companies which were prudent ploughed back their profits in to their operations to provide for better worker conditions and for environmentally friendly production facilities.
And in the post quota era it’s those companies that have had survived, not just survived, but being recognized as world class players in their respective fields and at the same time reaping windfall profits.
He said that those thousand companies have now been telescoped to only 30.
Godahewa said that that was a lesson for the tourism industry to bear in mind, to be sustainable.
The occasion was the launch of a book titled “Good Practice Guidelines on Environmental Management for Sri Lankan Hoteliers,” authored by Environmentalist Dr. (Ms.) Sriyanie Miththapala.
Miththapala in her speech said that at present one in seven people go hungry and one in three don’t have sufficient water. She said that at the rate at which the earth’s resources are being consumed, two and a half (2½) earths would be needed to sustain the world’s population by 2050.
Srilal Miththapala, Project Director/Consultant Switch Asia Programme in his speech said that Travel Foundation UK, a union of British tour operators, has teamed up with them, to spread the message that Sri Lanka is promoting sustainable tourism (See The Sunday Leader of May 8, 2011).
Switch Asia is also working with ILO’s Green Jobs programme and the Environment Ministry on this score.
Miththapala further said that Sri Lanka’s hotels are poor in record keeping in relation to electricity and water consumption.
He said that smaller hotels with 5-6 rooms and one small airconditioner plant were more interested in sustainable tourism compared to some of the bigger players. Due to a lack of resources, Switch Asia, an EU funded project to promote green tourism, was working with NGOs such as Oxfam and Practical Action to address that matter.
Managing Director CCC Solutions Prema Cooray in his address said that hotels’ energy bills were bigger than their payroll bills.
CCC Solutions is a Ceylon Chamber of Commerce subsidiary under which ambit the Switch Asia Programme operates.
“Energy poses the biggest challenge with energy bills set to rise,” he said.