To a Sri Lankan tour operator or hotelier, 'boom' is a dirty word. For, the LTTE's suicide bombers over the past 17 years, have eroded the emerald island's lustre as a prime South Asian destination, and other well-endowed tropical destinations have lured the tourists away.
Just when the tide seemed to have turned in -1999 with a 16-year high in tourist arrivals, the Tamil Tigers struck again…and again. Serial explosions rocked Colombo during the presidential poll campaign and the blasts continued well into 2000. No tourist was harmed but the industry bled. The tourist season, which is supposed to peak between November through March, hobbled to a weak finish.
There was another reason for the relatively poor showing, according to some, and that was the expectations for the millennium winter arrivals from Europe having been notched too high. Prices climbed wildly in anticipation of a flood of bookings; but hotels and travel agents had reckoned without the Y2K scare, which had beach-lovers going to Brighton instead of Bentota. Colombo's five-star hotels were forced to slash prices by more than half during theChristmas-New Year season. Still, overall arrivals were up 15 per cent in 1999, recording a total of 436,440 and earning the industry SLR 18,518 million
The relatively cheaper rates have always been a lure for the mostly low-spending tourists who come to the island; but this too threatens to become a thing of the past. A 12.5 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) comes into effect this April. Trade association heads had appealed for a rethink, with petitions going all but the way up to the President Chandrika Kumaratunga, but in vain. The GST will straight away raise prices, and so the Sri Lankan tourism product must sell higher for companies to stay afloat.