Domestic tourism and the restaurant sector would be among the first to recover from the current covid- 19 epidemic said respected and experience hotelier Chandra Mohotti.
Speaking to ‘Daily News Finance’ he said that when the intra district travel restriction are lifted and health authorities give the green light to start hotels, it would be the domestic travel that would pick up.
People who were confined to homes like to relax and travel and it would be the domestic destination they will first look at. “If the local hotels offer a reasonable price tag there would be a good response from Sri Lankans to travel.”
When the Bali bomb exploded international travel stopped to Indonesia and the government adjusted their holiday calendar and created log weekend shifting mid week holidays to either Monday or Friday. This resulted in locals traveling in large numbers to Bali giving the affected hotels the much needed revenue. He said that it would be almost impossible for international tourism to take off for a long time. “If a tourist is visiting Sri Lanka from Europe he or she will first have to wait 14 days in a quarantine center. They after the holiday is completed the tourist will have to go in to quarantine again in his or her native country.”
He also said due to low number of flights and additional health precautions the airlines have to take the airfares too would be expensive during the next few months once again restricting tourism. In addition due to economic recession created by the pandemic disposable income of people too would be low and ‘travel’ would be a non essential item in peoples agenda. Mohotti however said that the suspicious psychosis would be the key in future travel.
“When ever a person in the kitchen sneezes the other staff members would complain to the manager saying they are scared to work.
When the waiter serves and he sneezes in the restaurant the guests would complain and this fear psychosis would have to be taken off the minds and it will take some time for this.”
The former General Manager of Hotel Galadari and experiencing three bomb explosions during LTTE time he said that Sri Lankan travel sector is resilient and would recover.
Commenting on the future he said that Sri Lanka Tourism must look at training as there would be a demand specially from the Gulf. “I’m not talking about junior level but senior level staff as I see an emerging demand for hotel sector administrators. A new tourism trend has also emerged where hotels are giving their properties for the Army to manage to house passengers retuning from overseas helping to keep the hotels open.”
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