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Sharp drop in tourist arrivals

By Jamila Najmuddin 

The outbreak of the dengue epidemic has resulted in the country having to face a sharp drop in tourist arrivals, government officials said.

Panic-stricken tourists according to highly placed sources have cancelled their travel plans to Sri Lanka.

Senior Manager, Marketing and Travel, Ceylon Hotels Corporation (CHC), Ranjit Balasuriya told The Sunday Leader that if the government fails to take adequate steps to remedy the issue fast it would end up in a disaster.

Balasuriya also said that the decline in tourist arrivals was also due to last Wednesday's suicide attack in the heart of Colombo city.

"Although the main reason for tourist arrivals to drop in the country is the current dengue epidemic, the suicide explosion which took place on Wednesday also has a slight effect on the tourist arrivals in the country. However, it is to soon to say how badly this would affect the tourism industry, as this was an explosion aimed at certain parties rather than the public," Balasuriya said.

He also said that his office is inundated with telephone calls from a large number of tourists finding out about the situation in the country and also finding out if it is advisable to travel to Sri Lanka.

He said that locals who frequently travel to hotels islandwide have decided not to go because of the dengue threat.

The Sunday Leader learns the drop in locals visiting the hotels islandwide has affected the country's economy.

"The drop in tourists coming to Sri Lanka and locals' aversion to visit hotels due to the threat of dengue is expected to adversely affect the country's overall economy. It is high time that the government takes this into serious consideration," Balasuriya said.

Meanwhile, according to statistics released by the Tourism Ministry, there has been a great reduction in the number of tourist arrivals in the country compared to the first six months of last year. Officials said that this year in the month of January the total number of tourist arrivals was 49,950 with a 22.9% increase from January last year, in February there were a total of 43,584 with an increase of 11.5%, March there was 38,418 with a decrease of 11.9%, April there was 30,672 with a decrease 9.0% and May there was 30,162 with an increase of 0.4% only. The total number of tourists up to this year is 192,786 - a decrease of 4.6% from the first six months of last year.

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