Sri Lanka tourism industry claim that they cannot access government concession

Friday, June 7, 2019

Many businessmen who depend heavily on tourism have by now lost their means of generating income. The tourist arrival in the country faced a sudden stop after the 04/21 attacks that majorly targeted few eminent Sri Lankan tourist hotels.

News 1st researched deep into the present situation of the tourism sector. A tour of the main tourist attractions on the island made it apparent that several businessmen linked directly and indirectly to the tourism industry had lost their livelihood.

Small scale hotel owners emphasized that they do not even posses enough money to pay off the salaries of their employees. Arugambay experiences huge tourist inflow at this time of the year. However, today there are no tourists.

Chairman of the Cultural Hotel Association Saliya Dayananda have decided to pay the salaries of all the employees at all the famous hotel brands. He observed that many employees have been sent on paid leave as there are zero tourists and certain concessions have also been given to the part-time employees. He went onto note that the impacts of these are felt mainly by the small scale entrepreneurs and the situation of the people who own small rest houses is quite bad.

Tourism sector employees who earn a smaller basic salary in comparison to the employees of different industries make a bulk of their money via service charges. Now, these employees who lost their income via service charges as a result of sudden drop in the arrival of tourists are facing innumerable issues in meeting their daily financial commitments.

Also, there are many people who supply certain services associated to the tourism like as vendors and tour guides. Many of them noted that they had to shut down shops because of dearth of tourists.

At the same time, many three-wheeler drivers depend on tourism industry. The impacts that the abrupt drop in the arrival of tourists has on these three-wheel drives are also quite evident.

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