Rs. 1.4 Bn Tourism Marketing Plan soon

Sri Lanka will implement the new Tourism Strategic Master Plan for 2023-2025 this year, Minister of Tourism Harin Fernando said.

The Minister also disclosed that Sri Lanka will spend Rs 1.4 billion for an annual global tourism campaign which will start soon.

Speaking at the Revival of Sri Lanka Tourism 2023 event at Cinnamon Grand yesterday he said that this would be put to parliament next month and would come to effect towards the latter part of this year. The Minister said that they are targeting 1.5 million arrivals this year but with the current positive trend they should touch the 2 million arrival target. He said they also expect Chinese and Indian arrivals to increase. Sri Lanka targets 5 million arrivals for 2029 with 2.5 million of them spending around USD 500 million per day. In addition the arrival of new airlines too is also a very positive sign for the tourism sector.

“However we need to iron out bottle necks with some countries to increase seat capacity,” Fernando said. Commenting on the tourism revenue he said they had set a target USD 15 billion for 2030 but believe this target could be achieved by 2027.

Chairman Sri Lanka Tourist Development Authority Priyantha Fernando said that several investment areas for tourism have now been made available including land in Yala. He said that to attract high end tourists as instructed by President Ranil Wickremesinghe Sri Lanka needs to build more rooms and increase the number of keys from the current 10,000 star level rooms.

“We need more investors for these and they can use some of the lands available in Yala, Kalpitiya, Kuchiweli, Mannar, Dedduwa and Delft Island.”

He also disclosed that Sigiriya will be declared as Sri Lanka’s first sustainable tourism destination. Chairman Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Chalaka Gajabahu said a focus campaign would be done to woo local diaspora soon. “A special local tourism promotion drive too would be done for domestic tourism promotion.”