Big plan for tourism sector
A delegation led by Sri Lankan Tourism Minister Harin Fernando has come to India to invite Indian tourists to Sri Lanka. This includes tour operators, representatives of the hotel industry and government officials. They are doing roadshows in different cities here. During this, Fernando is referring to the government’s big plan for the tourism sector. He says that Sri Lanka is now recovering rapidly from the economic crisis. Now everything is back to normal. That is why the target is to attract one million tourists there by the end of this year. Obviously, India will have the highest participation in these.
Most Indian tourists are reaching
Around 5 lakh foreign tourists arrived in Sri Lanka between January and July this year. Most of them were Indians. Even in the midst of the crisis, 74,000 Indian tourists have reached there in the first seven months of this year. The United Kingdom is the second place after India, where 58,000 tourists have reached there. It is followed by Russia, from where 48,000 tourists reached Sri Lanka. That’s why the Sri Lankan government hopes that by the end of the year one million foreign tourists will reach there.
No problem of eating nor long line at petrol pump
The Sri Lankan Tourism Minister says that there has been a lot of negative reporting about his country in the media. Now there is no shortage of food and drink, nor is there any line at the petrol pumps there. There the quota of petrol or diesel for all motor vehicles has been tied. Accordingly, everything is working.
Country will be debt free by 2048
Harin Fernando says that the revenue of $ 1.8 billion has been received from the tourists who have reached there so far. By the end of this year, when the number of tourists will reach one million, then the revenue will also double. If all goes well and the economy is back on track, Sri Lanka will be debt free by the year 2048.
Tourism sector earns the highest foreign exchange
Harin points out that Sri Lanka’s tourism sector is the largest foreign exchange earning sector. Tourism, textiles and remittances contribute about 60 percent of the GDP there. Presently the tourism sector is improving. When this sector is cured, the textile sector will also be cured. As for the remittances, that too is coming back on track. The minister says that remittances were coming even earlier, but they started using unofficial channels more than official channels. So the crisis deepened.
The year 2018 was the best for tourism
He told that the year 2018 was the best year for the Sri Lankan tourism department. During that time 23 lakh foreign tourists had reached there. Due to this the government got revenue of $ 4.3 billion. After this, tourism caught sight of someone. It is noteworthy that in the year 2919, there was a case of Easter Sunday Terror Attack. After this, the years 2019 and 2020 were spent in the shadow of Corona. The tourism sector opened in 2021, but only 1.94 lakh tourists reached there in a year.
Source: navbharattimes.indiatimes.com
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