Sarath Wijesinghe President’s Counsel, former Ambassador to UAE and ISRAEL, President Ambassador’s Forum

Tourism world’s fastest and most popular and productive industry

Tourism is an industry which is one of the global and easily managed with available resources of a nation, a world industry that fetches 10% GDP and provides 10% employment to Sri Lanka’s economy. Sri Lanka is a compact nation ideally suited for tourism which is not properly utilized to the maximum capacity compared to extreme beauty and the geographical situation in the Indian Ocean along the famous and historical ‘silk route’. It is managed easily and many nations depend on tourism for their GDP employment and foreign exchange. Many countries compete with Sri Lanka including Immediate newghbour India, friendly China, Maldive Islands and many as every country depends on the income on tourism easy to fetch with least effort and investment.

Natural compact workshop

It is Richerd ‘’Dawkine’’ a world-renowned biologist who said that islands such as Sri Lanka which is extremely rare are natural workshops of evolution which is extremely rare to come across on the globe. Sri Lanka is considered another world considering the requirements to be a paradise in a small compact area with a distance of few miles with varied climatic conditions and different vegetations, unparallel. Commander Alexender Fleet said ‘Taprobane’ ‘‘’ under the name of the land of the autochthones, was long considered to be another world but the epoch and the achievement’s of Alexender the Great supplied  clear proof of its being an island. It is indeed another world considering everything available in massive India in one compact island with excellent network of roads and beautiful rivers starting from the hills speeding right round the island expecting to utilize every drop of water utilized for agriculture a construction and development.

A small universe

It is world renowned scientist ‘’Sir Arther C Cllarke’’  a visionary scientist who made Sri Lanka  his written  wrote  in the view from Serendib  Sri Lanka is a small universe; it contains as many variations of culture scenery  and climate as many countries dozen time of its size’’ and his view is shared with many world over with pleased experiences followed by number of awards, and prizes by number of international organizations conducted globally by professional organizations.

Productive and dynamic?

Tourism is productive and dynamic to a country in need to deal with the world on international affairs and the best mode of communication is a proper foreign policy and a stable tourism machinery Sri Lanka is geared, suited and ready for with the inherent infrastructure and educated and pleased community that needs bit more training and encouragement in addition to their inherent friendly nature famous for and known to the world. Tourists are defined as visitors Wisit another destination over 24 hours mainly pleasure, leisure, general visit, business or any other purpose which is a requirement for the visitor as well as the host country. Income generated from visitors are enormous from many countries led by Frence the most visited country and USA a leader on tourism followed by China and many other western nations adopting themselves for the requirements of the visitors and their needs. Tourist is a visitor mainly look for safety, affordability, good food, places to visit based on needs, mainly led by softy comfort and food with conveniences and variations from the original living conditions. It appears Sri Lanka meets all or most of these requirements at an affordable prizes and variations of different levels.

Our Duty

It is our duty to make tourism productive and dynamic for the benefit of the economy and prosperity of the country in need of foreign currency and obtain the best use and the benefit to the nation when the world has comet know of us reaching 20 lacks of tourists today and it is timely to ascertain the productivity of the tourists to the country not being parasites who misuse the goodwill and friendly nature of the host country, when other tourist nations take necessary precautions before permitted them to enter as a tourists. It is a requirement in tourist nations to compel tourists to prove the ability to bear expenditure and to shoe they are genuine tourists entering the hist country with ulterior motives. It is in news some tourists are using the host country for illegal and unlawful dealings resulting loss of revenue, income to the citizens and the state on shady and illegal dealings during their stay and it is advisable for us to lead from the experiences of other countries such as UAE and Singapore who enforces the rules to the last word. In Singapore as a visitor enters the country, He/She is educated on the legal system, states of consumer law and practices with strict enforcement of immigration law and rules. Sri Lanka do not seem to enforce the law strictly giving excessive freedom to the tourists expecting them to be genuine tourists when everybody is not genuine and some tend to rough out in temples and engage in odd jobs to earn a living, and sometimes engage in businesses, that will damage the tourist trade and have adverse effects on the industry picking up fast today. Sri Lanka earned 3.2trillion in 2017 and 2018 have been the peak year with a drop due to Covid-19 that affected the entire world and fortunately Sri Lanka emerged victorious despite the downturn due the drop on business, which is picking up fast today despite drawbacks on the management and the forward planning that needs lot of improvements and it is somewhat good news that the tourism authority is making genuine and professional efforts in the right direction, with right steps taken. These are mattering the community as a whole have to work together as one unit understating the need and gravity to make visitors happy and feel at home, and the vision and steps taken on clean Sri Lanka appear to be in the right direction, as cleanliness is a pre requisite and explorerse in tourism, when our genet neighbor India competing with us is behind us in the field of cluelessness and sanatory situations.

Smile cost nothing but attracts tourists

Sri Lankans are famous to be with a pleasant smile unlike many other nationals as observed by tourists, which is inherent in them that you do not get in many other nationals who are inherently reserved and minds their own business as their nature, that attracts tourists and villages ae famous for. Tourists will like a smiling and a feignedly nation in addition to the inherent beauty and the compact nature of the intact universe on the silk route and a comfortable stay in the new destination enjoying the ne experiences and explorations on varied areas.

Availabilities and room for improvement

Availabilities and opportunities are immense and countless. It is a heaven for historians, archeologists, sociologists, educationalists, and explores of all kinds backed by academics and great history running back to ‘’Balangoda Man’’ 150,000 years ago and Ravana story some say nor an epic yet a realiaty connected to Ramayanaya in India. Being the main Teravada Buddist country with ‘’Tripitika a world hesitates’’ and Buddhism being the fastest religion in Europe which is intact in Sri Lanka, with freedom for any religion to thrive having given free access to other religions by kings and protected constitutionally to date shows the world that Sri Lanka is a free country that world citizens could enjoy as visitors protected constitutionally all the time. It is the duty of the governance to give the tourists a sense of protection all the time maintaining law and order and rule of law in the country, for the tourists to feel free, and reinforcement the tourist police will be a good idea and some directions to the social media may be helpful with the assistance of the tourist authority appear to be doing fairly well.

(Sigiriya Rock-only a small part of our treasure intact in the compact universe)

Is so well known to the tourists as one of the main important places to visit which is most used despite to large number of places of historical and archeological importance right round the island in addition to the natural beauty and varied climatic conditions with access via the excellent network of roads connected to highways of international standard3333333333.

Way forward and future of tourism in Sri Lanka and our aim

Future of tourism depends on the vision mission and the conduct of the Minister and his strategy on the further for tourism in Sri Lanka for Sri Lanka. It is an easy process as there is a compact universe to be presented to the world with few adjustments and adopt annotations to suit the modern world and trends, which is a par strategy to be the best tourist destination in the world, which is possible when compared to the other best destinations world over. Let us have the target for it which is possible with some effort and strategy. Sarath28dw@ gmail.com to reach the editor and I suggest you to browse the net for other articles published on the internet