The informal sector in the Unavatuna tourism belt is one of the largest revenue contributors to the local tourism sector, while providing over 3,000 employment opportunities, which should not be ignored by the Ministry of Finance when offering benefits in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday blasts.
The Unavatuna tourism belt consist of four AGA divisions and there are around 500 registered hotels and restaurants and over 2,000 in the informal sector. Attorney at Law and Chairman, Full Moon Restaurant Rupasena Koswattage, said that they are not been registered with the Tourism Ministry for no fault of theirs. “We are keen to get registered with the Ministry and we
even handed over an application to a team of Ministry officials who visited Unavatuna in 2016.”
He explained that to be a classified hotel or restaurant with the Ministry of Tourism, they had to obtain a Coast Conservation Department (CCD) and Urban Development Authority (UDA) approval which is impossible due to their geographical location. The UDA wants us to show a parking lot while the CCD wants our establishment set up leaving sufficient space for the sea. It was the informal sector that created the Unavatuna tourism belt 40 years ago, by renting out a room for tourists. “Later, some converted their houses as guest houses or restaurants and the industry began to flourish, while big players too joined to build large hotels.”
He also emphasized that all informal sector businesses are registered with the Pradeshia Sabah, have a business registration, while all of them pay EPF and ETF to their employees expect when the entire family works in their own business. He said the main road leading to the Unavatuna tourism belt is just 10.3 meters and there is no way to provide parking as requested by the UDA. “Due to the limited space between the sea and the road, there is no way to have a hotels or a restaurants leaving a 5 meter space.”
This is the reason why we are unable to get registered with the Ministry of Tourism.
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| Rupasena Koswattage |
He, however said that some of the star class hotels that are currently built, had obtained no objection letters from the CCD. “But such letters are not offered to us for reasons best know to the CCD.” He also questioned as to how the CCD offered letters to both the formal and informal sector in Mirissa tourism area.
“When obtaining bank loans, the project proposal for its related tourism as our families depends on it.” He said that it was the travel bible, ‘Lonely Plant’ publication that said ‘Sri Lanka best place to travel in 2019,’ which brought in high spenders from EU, Russia to Unavatuna, unlike in the previous years where low spenders called a day. the “Due to Easter Sunday blasts tourism has virtually died in Unavatuna and we are appealing that the ‘Unavatuna informal sector engaged in tourism’ be included to the Tourism relief package that is now offered by the Ministry of Finance.” “I have to spend around Rs. 500,000 to upkeep my hotel and similar issues are faced by others as well. In addition, bank loans have to be serviced and staff bills and other overheads too have to be met.”
Koswattage who speaks on behalf of the informal sector in Unavatuna said that if this is ignored, the sector would have to abandon tourism and look at other sources of business and when tourism speaks again, Unavatuna would not be a major tourism area depriving revenue to tourism coffers
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