With the arrival of four million tourists during the next two years, the tourism industry will become Sri Lanka’s second largest foreign exchange earner, Finance and Planning, Deputy Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama made these remarks at the inaugural ‘Rising Star Awards -2017ceremony held at BMICH. The ceremony was conducted by the Hotels Association of Sri Lanka. (THASL). The objective of conducting the inaugural awards ceremony was to honor and encourage a large number of Sri Lankan youth who are engaged in the industry which brings a colossal amount of foreign exchange to Sri Lanka every year.Fourty six receptionists, public area attendants, room attendants, stewards, bartenders, pool attendants and telephone operators were awarded at the ceremony.
He said with the arrival of over 2.2 million tourists to the country, Sri Lanka earned US dollars 3.5 million foreign exchange last year and statistics reveals that the arrival of tourists to Sri Lanka will be increased the further future .
Tourism Minister John Amaratunga highlighted the invaluable service being rendered by THASL and said this nature of awards ceremonies highly encourage more younger generation to seek employment in this sector.
He said Sri Lanka has over 1,000 star class hotels and also luxury hotels, boutique hotels , guest houses, apartments etc to cater tourists and said therefore even the Government should take steps to improve the Airport facilities and reduce handling charges, clearing charges and various other charges in order to attract tourists visiting the country. Amaratunga said even countries such as India, Malaysia and Singapore have reduced airport charges to attract more and more tourists to their countries.
Talking about budget airlines , Minister Amaratunga said Lankan authorities should develop the budget airline sector considering the fact that a large number of tourists are now traveling in budget airlines.
He said millions of tourists travel by budge airlines to Malaysia,Thailand and Singapore and Sri Lanka too should develop it to attract more airlines to visit Sri Lanka. The Minister said the Government has started a budget airline terminal in Batticaloa and also planned to construct four more budget terminals in many other districts. The Minister also said steps will be taken to have global advertising about the Lankan tourism industry via CNN, BBC, Aljazeera, Times of india, CCTV China and NDTV.
THASL, President Sanath Ukwatte said their industry distributes 10 percent of the revenue among employees and in addition their basic salary is combined with benefits such as uniforms, free meals on duty. He said his association continuous to extend its fullest support to enhance young talent to achieve career success and become the future leaders of the country’s hospitality industry.
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