Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) has made the tourism investment process easy by streamlining the project approval process and the facilitation services provided by the Investor Relations Unit (IRU) - the unit established within SLTDA as the centralized facilitation arm for tourism investments in the country.
The key objective of this effort is to provide a single point of contact for the investors in the tourism sector and to provide an efficient, effective and hassle-free investment facilitation process for tourism investments.
In general, an investor in the tourism sector has to fill individual applications for several line agencies for approval of a tourism project. The number of agencies applicable for a tourism project is comparatively higher if the projects are located closer to a sensitive attraction.
Finding solutions for the above issues; a centralized facilitation unit was established by SLTDA in late 2010. The IRU has approved 503 projects with a total value of US $ 3,789.04 million during the past 10 years. The inter-agency collaboration was further strengthened recently with the continuous dialogue.
In addition, the approval processes of key approving agencies were mapped to spot the duplications and delays due to unnecessary steps and multiple signatories. The process was thereby streamlined and as a result, the time taken to issue a preliminary clearance was able to be reduced from 45 days to 25 days.
Technical support for the above streamlining process was provided to SLTDA by USAID’s Supporting Accelerated Investment in Sri Lanka (SAIL) Project with a team of experts with international expertise & exposure. Glenn F. J. Mackenzie-Frazer, Chief of Party and IDG Country Director stated: “This is one more step on the path of placing Sri Lanka at the forefront of tourism globally. It has been USAID-SAIL’s privilege to partner with SLTDA on this journey”.
Having the tourism mandate as per the Tourism Act No 38 of 2005, SLTDA’s Investor Relations Unit (IRU) makes sure all upcoming developments in tourism by the private sector is complied with specified quality standards and developed in compliance to the existing regulations of the country.
This helps reduce low-quality and illegal tourism establishments, which will impact in eradicating the informal sector of tourism in the future.
Chairperson of SLTDA Kimarli Fernando, said, “These achievements are not made solely by the SLTDA. It’s a joint effort made by all government agencies. The collaboration and support given by all the government agencies in making these improvements to the process are tremendous.”
SLTDA encourages all the investors to obtain the services of Investor Relations Unit (IRU) to obtain reliable information on the process, proper guidance and facilitation services to ensure successful tourism projects with proper quality standards.
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