JIA, Alliance Air ensuring steady tourist flow to Northern Province

The Northern province tourism sector is playing a major role towards the development of the tourism segment in Sri Lanka Chairman, Tourism Bureau, Northern Province, (TBNP) Sunil Dissanayake said.

He said that with the opening of the Jaffna International Airport (JIA) and Alliance Air operating four flights per week from Chennai which are packed to capacity the province for the first time are witnessing regular tourist clientele.

“We must thank Airport Aviation for the positive role they played in developing the JIA and also the follow up work in upgrading it with duty free and adding other infrastructure. Northern hotels were mostly dependent on local Southern tourists who travel to Jaffna on long holidays and weekends. This segment also significantly reduced with the Colombo Jaffna train being temporarily suspended due to track repair. However with the arrival of Alliance Air flight, the hotels in the area have received a major boost as they now have a guest event during weekdays.”

He said the TBNP also initiated a special shuttle bus service from JIA to the city and back and this is very popular. “We had also a special weekend train for southern holiday makers who patronized Jaffna for the weekend to get back and had also arranged hotels to provide flexible check out hours. With the proposed upgrading of the airstrip at JIA to allow larger aircraft to land, the region’s tourism will receive a further boost. In addition the resumption of rail service up to Jaffna soon with reduced travel time would be another booster for the region’s tourism.”

He said that the proposed resumption of KKS and Cochin ferry service would give another major boost for Northern Tourism. The proposed ferry service expected to start in May this year for which an Indian investor has already been found would have around 500 seats with 115 business class seats in the mini ship. It offers around 100 Kg of luggage which would help to ferry northern fruit and vegetable and other locally made merchants to India as well.

Dissanayake who is also the Director / Chief Executive of BMICH said that in a bid to provide these tourists a better service our Tourism Bureau are helping to upgrade the Northern hotels’ services standards.

“We conduct workshops not only for staff but also senior managers as well as owners of the hotels on a regular basis which has helped the hotels to offer better service standards.”

He said they were also pleased to note the positive cultural shift where more female workers too are joining the industry seeking hospitality sector employment and due to business picking up in Jaffna; they see youth from other areas like UVA and North Central also seeking hotel sector employment in Jaffna.

The India-funded Jaffna Cultural Centre in Jaffna with 11 floors and facilities, including an auditorium that can seat 600 persons, a conference hall, an amphitheater and a digital library, opened recently gives us a good venue to market MICE. Built with an Indian grant of US$11 million it can also be used for cultural activities. “We are now working with the Convention Bauru to promote this and bring MICE events to Jaffna.”

Dissanayake who was nominee of Northern Province Governor for the Tourism Bureau, Northern Province and took over in April last year has also prepared a comprehensive Northern Tourism Development road map until 2025.

“Under this initiative we have also started an international destination marketing campaign specially to woo more diaspora to travel to Jaffna and spend more time there. We are also promoting investments to Jaffna from this segment not only for tourism but also for real estate and other segments.

To complete the Northern tourism development there is a huge vacuum for a quality beach hotel and we hope we could attract investors for this. Another area that the hospitality sector investors should look at is Delft island which has a rich colonial heritage that could be marketed to Dutch and British.”