Sri Lanka seeks enhanced military training from India

Sri Lanka has sought enhanced military training from India, according to President Maithripala Sirisena’s office.

Visiting Indian Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra called on Mr. Sirisena on Monday, and wide-ranging matters, including bilateral defence cooperation between the neighbouring countries and regional security, were discussed, officials said.

“India and Sri Lanka agreed to increase cooperation in security and defence spheres in several areas, including regional security, curbing drug smuggling and human trafficking and training of members of the security forces,” a statement from the presidential media unit said.

Thanking India for its partnership, Mr. Sirisena requested to increase the number of personnel trained by India. The Indian Defence Secretary agreed to look into the possibility of enhancing training facilities, the statement further said.

Currently, over 60% of Sri Lanka’s military personnel pursue their young officers’ course, junior and senior command courses in India, according to defence sources in Colombo.

Meanwhile, ‘Exercise Mitra Shakti’, the sixth edition of the joint military training exercise between the Indian Army and the Sri Lankan Army, concluded in Badulla district, in Sri Lanka’s Central Province, on Monday.

Contingents from the two countries jointly planned and executed a series of “well-coordinated tactical operations based on scenarios that are likely to be encountered in rural and urban environment”, a press release from the Indian Ministry of Defence said. The two-week programme is part of an initiative that began in 2013 as part of military diplomacy between India and Sri Lanka.

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Addressing the white elephant in Lankan economic development in tourism

In the past, Sri Lanka has focused on increasing the number of tourists coming into the country and showcased the

 increase in tourism without much concentration on the growth of our economy in retrospect. Lonely Planet listed Sri Lanka as the number one tourist destination for 2019 whilst Sri Lanka simultaneously boasted of 2.2 million tourists at the closure of 2018. None of these however focus on the economic growth brought in. To put it simply, there wasn’t much of economic prosperity as a majority of these tourists coming in were backpackers with a weekly spending budget of less than $ 500. The question however lies in why doesn’t Sri Lanka attract tourists with a higher spending power? 

A closer look at the issue

Upon closer inspection and analysis, it was concluded that Sri Lanka does not attract tourists with higher spending power who are willing to spend more than $ 300 per day. This is largely due to our country lacking the proper infrastructure to support this level of tourism and the free availability of ‘affordable’ resources as opposed to having more high-end facilities in the country.

Let’s take a step back and analyse this situation through the eye of a potential tourist. There are currently limited direct flights connecting large countries to Sri Lanka. Any potential visitor must predominantly select between Etihad, Qatar Airways or Emirates when flying to Sri Lanka from North America and Europe, resulting in sometimes lengthy transits before arriving at Bandaranaike International Airport. After a long flight, guests are then succumbed into a six-hour drive should they wish to visit the north of the country or another six-hour drive should they wish to visit the south. The lack of better roadways and alternate methods of travel in Sri Lanka leaves guests only the option of travelling on sub-par roads, adding exhaustion to a tiring journey.

Limited qualifying luxury villas and 5-star accommodations in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka can currently accommodate guests in up to 4,200 five-star hotel rooms with a total staff count of 250,000 to serve these tourists, out of which only 250 rooms belong to luxury boutique villas and hotels that cater to clients on the higher spectrum of spending power.

Room rates in the Cultural Triangle, North, South and Central regions offer half-board accommodation at a rate of $ 90 (Rs. 16,167) per double room. Once taxes are deducted, the hotel is left with Rs. 12,442 from which once Rs. 3,200 is reduced for two breakfast and dinner meals, the hotel is ultimately left with only Rs. 9,242, which doesn’t provide much of a profit margin for a hotel and the industry to sustain profitably, much less allow the hotel to provide a great customer experience through constant innovation.

Looking ahead and getting proper infrastructure in place

To attract tourists with a higher purchasing power, Sri Lanka must not only grow in number of luxury hotels and villas, but also take an initiative to develop our infrastructure. For a tourist to visit the country, they must at times spend lengthy transit hours since we do not have a direct air carrier who flies directly from America and Europe to Sri Lanka. The many hours spent on transit coupled with the many hours spent travelling to various locations around the country from the airport isn’t attractive for potential tourists. 

Even though Sri Lanka’s road infrastructure is yet to reach groundbreaking heights, the Government has taken the right initiative through the Megapolis Ministry that aims on developing roads, railways and the landscape of the city by 2030 with a marina, a cruise centre, a waterfront promenade and housing for an estimate of two million people. 

In addition to roads, railways and the development of the megapolis, Sri Lanka must also look at alternative methods of domestic travel. Currently there are only a few providers offering domestic aircraft carriers, with two of them being large conglomerates in the country. However, these aircraft carriers can only accommodate eight passengers per flight and come at a very high cost making this an unattractive mode of domestic transport, despite the savings in time. 

For tourists looking to visit Sri Lanka and spend a vacation here in luxury, either basking in the misty hills or travelling in the north getting to know about part of our heritage or even enjoy the Southern sea, Sri Lanka’s level of infrastructure and support facilities aren’t attractive enough. Having to travel for six hours to reach the north or south after a tiring plane ride or having to charter an expensive domestic flight with limited travel availability due to their limited flying hours simply isn’t attractive enough to bring in tourists with higher spending power. To bring about economic growth through targeted tourism, it’s time Sri Lanka began developing our urban cities, infrastructure and value added services to attract the right clientele. 

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Sri Lanka will grant free visas to tourists

Sri Lanka will grant free visas to tourists from key markets like the United Kingdom, Europe and Asian Buddhist countries like Thailand for six months from 1 April 2019 to encourage visits during months when arrivals usually slump.

The government information office said in a statement the Cabinet of Ministers had approved the proposal by John Amaratunga, Minister of Tourism Development, Wild Life and Christian Religious Affairs this week.

Free visas will be given to tourists from Thailand, United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, Canada, United States of America, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and countries of the European Union, it said.

The move aims to encourage visits during key Buddhist festivals like Vesak and Poson during this period.

(COLOMBO, February 27, 2019-SB)

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Kishu Gomes appointed Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority

Kishu Gomes will be officially appointed as the Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau today, Tourism Development Ministry said.

Accordingly, Minister John Amaratunga is to present the letter of appointment to him this afternoon.

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sl Tourism to streamline promotion activities

Sri Lanka Tourism has kick started their promotional campaign for 2019 and around 15% of the budget has already been exhausted so far, said Director, Marketing at Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, Madubhani Perera. The total budget for 2019 is around Rs. 6 billion.

She said that most of the promotion budget was invested to participate in international fairs in 2019. Perera said that last year the sum allocated for tourism Promotion was around Rs. 5 billion but only around 75% of it was used.

Meanwhile Minister of Tourism Development, Wildlife and Christian Affairs, John Amaratunga said that a proposal has been made to the cabinet to offer Visa on Arrival to tourists from Thailand.

“I am returning from an event in Thailand and their tourists are keen to visit Sri Lanka. Thai nationals are offered free visa on arrival to travel within the ASIAN region. I proposed to the cabinet to offer similar facility for them when visiting Sri Lanka.”

The Minister said that though they were targeting 3 million arrivals for 2019, if there were no political issues in Sri Lanka, this target can reach up to 3.1 million. He said that already there is a 2.2% arrival growth in January as against the previous year. 

Speaking at an event jointly organized by Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators and Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) the Minister said that this year Sri Lanka will play host to many MICE events and the biggest would be the United Nations event in March where over 3,000 delegates would participate.

He however said that successive governments have not taken serious measures to increase capacity at the Colombo airport and this has put a check on many new budget airlines that want to fly to Sri Lanka.

“There is a huge congestion at the immigration counters and steps should be taken to offer one separate lane for Sri Lankans which would speed up matters at Customs,” he said.

The Minister also said that two former Vice Presidents of Sri Lankan Tourism Promotions Bauru, Nilmin Nanayakkara and Mervyn Fernandopulle were exonerated of all charges and this proves that the judiciary is impartial.

“Both of them did not make any decisions or even take any favors while serving in the SLTBP. They merely placed their signatures on Board decisions.”

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Harnessing the real potential of tourism industry

After much drama, a new head has been installed at the country’s tourism establishment. Corporate leader Kishu Gomes on Monday assumed duties as Chairman of both the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau (SLTPB). 

During a press conference last Friday, Gomes promised bringing in at least three million tourists to Sri Lanka this year. The country achieved 2.3 million tourists in 2018, about 200,000 short of the target, which was originally set. 

Although Sri Lanka has achieved considerable growth in the tourism industry, in terms of tourist arrivals and earnings in the post-war period, it has been far from the country’s true potential, which was recently named the best destination to travel in 2019 by the world-renowned travel guidebook brand Lonely Planet.

Gomes is a proven business leader in Sri Lanka’s thriving private sector and has over three decades of experience at top management positions. He is probably one of the youngest Sri Lankans to ever head the local operations of a multinational company. The added advantage is that he has a strong marketing background. 

Last week, he proudly told the media that his DNA is marketing and brand communication. The experience and strategies of Gomes as a marketer could become invaluable for the long-delayed global marketing campaign of Sri Lanka tourism. The Tourism Development, Wildlife and Christian Religious Affairs Ministry last week said they would soon present a detailed plan of the said campaign to the Cabinet, after incorporating the views of Gomes.

The soft launch of the campaign is scheduled to take place at the world’s largest tourism trade fair, ITB Berlin, this March. The three-year campaign, which received the SLTPB board approval recently, will focus on promoting Sri Lanka tourism in eight key source markets, with an estimated budget of Rs.3.0 billion.

Sri Lanka has been feeling the need for a proper destination marketing campaign for a while. But the initiatives taken towards it at various times under several tourism ministers were impeded by the country’s toxic politics and procurement scandals.

This probably is the best juncture in Sri Lanka Tourism’s history to launch a massive promotional campaign as the country’s governance structure remains relatively strong and the civil society’s ability to influence the politics is high. 

However, it is vital to come to a consensus on how to position Sri Lanka as a tourism destination before embarking on a major marketing push. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on several occasions had said given Sri Lanka’s limited carrying capacity, the country should look at attracting high-end tourists, who spend a considerable amount of money during their stays. 

However, given the rising number of informal accommodation providers, it is clear that Sri Lanka is becoming more of a backpackers’ paradise than a sojourn for high-spending tourists. It is believed that Sri Lanka’s vibrant informal tourism sector played a major role in the country being selected as the best place to travel in 2019 by Lonely Planet. 

Hence, the tourism authorities and the industry should reach a consensus as soon as possible on where to position Sri Lanka as a tourism destination, to give a clear message out to the prospective tourists. Every country that recognizes tourism as a major contributor to its economy must have a tourism identity and Sri Lanka shouldn’t be an exception, despite its diverse tourism product offering. 

It is essential that Sri Lanka creates itself a fine balance between high-spending tourists and backpackers and all the country’s promotional and marketing campaigns should revolve around this notion.

Meanwhile, a proposal has been pushed forward by a group of hospitality sector stakeholders urging the authorities to consider giving the country’s tourism industry the export industry status. Even at the height of the separatist war, the tourism industry was able to attract tourists to the country and earn the much-needed foreign exchange to the economy. 

When the tsunami wrecked havoc in the southern and eastern coasts of Sri Lanka, the industry was able to rise from wreckage within a very short time, showing its resilience. Hence, the government should seriously look at including tourism into its export strategy and provide the necessary concession, similar to the other export industries.

Also, the suggestion to establish tourism trade zones, similar to that of export processing zones, could also be a very innovative approach to develop some of the underdeveloped tourism hot spots in the eastern and northern parts of the island.

All in all, what is needed as far as the country’s tourism sector is concerned, is a new approach—be it promoting the country through a global marketing campaign or providing the industry with the much-needed impetus by recognizing their efforts throughout the years. 

One thing we should always keep in mind as Sri Lankans is that worker remittances still remain the highest foreign exchange earner, despite the country having such potential for tourism. Isn’t this anything short of a national embarrassment? 

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ADB, China leads Sri Lanka foreign financing in early 2018

ECONOMYNEXT – The Asian Development Bank and China were the biggest lenders to Sri Lanka's in the first four months of 2018 followed by Japan, while China also made most of the new commitments, official data shows. 

Out of 512.12 million dollars of bilateral and multilateral financing used in public investment in the first four months of the year, ADB disbursed 228.85 million dollars in loans and 0.74 million in grants. 

China disbursed 90.83 million dollars, Japan 54.9 million dollars and the World Bank 48.83 million dollars. 

China also pledged most of the new project loans, comitting 79.8 million dollars out of a total of 266.2 million US dollars where 10 new agreements were signed. 

After the reporting period, China Development Bank also won a bid to syndicate a billion dollar loan to Sri Lasnka. 

The Asian Development Bank committed 75 millon US dollars followed by India with 45.3 million dollars. 

A total of 219.2 million dollars were pledged as and 46.9 million as grants and technical assistance in the first four month of 2018.

Others who committed new loans were were Australia (25.0 million dollars), USA (17.9 million), Austria (13.0 million), International Fund for Agricultural Development (6.2 million), United Nations Population Fund (4.0 million) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (0.01 million).

Of the commitments made the highest amount was committed for the railway sector with 79.8 million. 

The small and medium enterprises sector received the second highest commitment of 75.0 million.

Separately Sri Lanka also raised 2.5 billion US dollars thorugh international sovereign bonds. 

Sri Lanka is now raising foreign loans mostly to repay maturing older loans, as part of a debt re-structuring effort. In the first four months, Sri Lanka had settled 715.6 million US dollars out of which 325.4 million dollars was interest. (COLOMBO, July 02, 2018)

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