Tourist arrivals down in 2008; mixed sentiments from hotels

By Kushali Atukorale
Regular adverse publicity continues to plague the leisure industry with tourist arrivals dipping and Sunday’s suicide bomb outside Colombo making the situation worse.

Industry sources said that tourist arrivals in February fell by 6% to 40,551 in comparison to a year earlier while total arrivals in the first two months were down by 2% to 97,467.

The decline in February has alarmed the leisure industry since December 2007 saw record arrival of over 60,000 while in January this year it stabilized to 56,500.

With Sunday’s suicide bomb blast which killed Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and 11 others at Weliweriya, concerns of the leisure industry have renewed.

The country is in the midst of its busy and final leg of the 2007/8 winter season.

Analysts said that though March numbers may look higher than February, regular spikes in the security situation continue to handicap the tourism industry from a solid recovery.

Last week PATA Chief Executive Office Peter de Jong noted Sri Lanka was no more dangerous than many other destinations. However officials of PATA, who were here to attend the annual meetings, hosted by Sri Lanka, admitted the country was facing difficult times and stressed the need to step up destination marketing. Tourist arrivals were down by 12% to 494,000 last year.

Certain hoteliers said that occupancy levels had improved in March and thus far in April.

For example Aitken Spence Hotels Managing Director Malin Hapugoda downplayed a serious impact on bookings following Sunday’s incident.

“The uncertainty prevailing in the country has not affected tourist bookings in the Aitken Spence hotels. Most of the hotels are fully booked, with Hotel Kandalama leading with the most number of bookings. In general, all the hotels are doing well, despite the situation in the country,” Hapugoda said on the sidelines of the media launch of the Company’s new exclusive loyalty rewards programme, “The Diamond Club” yesterday.