Sri Lanka tourism lost US$ 5 bn due to COVID

Sri Lanka has lost nearly US$ five billion in foreign exchange due to the impacts of the COVID pandemic on the tourism industry, State Minister Kanaka Herath said.

He said the tourism industry provided the highest amount of foreign exchange to the country every year.

The state minister stated this participating in the ceremony to name newly born three elephant calves at the Pinnawala elephant orphanage recently.

They have been named as Disa, Sajjana and Nilamani.

He said, however, tourist arrivals into the country are gradually increasing at present after about two years due to the success of the COVID-19 vaccination programme in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s vaccination programme is among the world’s best 10 countries. The State Minister said currently Sri Lanka has a great opportunity to attract foreign tourists as some of the famous tourist destination countries in the world are on lockdown due to the impacts of the Omicron variant.

He said that he is hopeful the tourist arrivals will go up in the coming months. Director General of the Department of National Zoological Gardens and several other invitees participated on this occasion.