How crisis-hit Sri Lanka is gradually reviving its tourism business

After four consecutive years of economic and social strife, Sri Lanka’s tourism sector, once having slowed to a crawl, is picking up again

There’s something about the emerald green of the Sri Lankan waters by its sunny beaches that never loses its charm; it’s like being on an eternal vacation, until it’s not.

In April 2019, the island nation’s Easter Sunday was marked by a series of deadly bombings across its capital city Colombo, where three luxury hotels and three churches were targeted by two local groups that had allegedly pledged allegiance to the ISIS. The attack had killed 270 people, while injuring over 500 during peak tourist season. It pushed Sri Lanka into the throes of an economic crisis that only exacerbated with the COVID-19 pandemic that followed merely months after, thereby decelerating an economy that has tourism for its backbone.

In April 2022, news emerged that the country had started to run out of fuel, with nation-wide power outages hurling it into literal darkness, coupled with inflation as steep as 50 per cent. Protests broke out on the streets; essential services shut down indefinitely as the state exhausted its foreign currency reserves that halted imports as well. In May last year, for the first time in its history, Sri Lanka defaulted on paying an interest on its foreign debt, following which, a month later, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned in the face of swelling protests.

A year later, however, there is hope in Sri Lanka. After the then prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe took over as president, the government has taken drastic measures to reorient their economy to clear their debts. Besides accepting generous help in the form of a US$3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and a US$600 million loan from the World Bank, the government is also putting major thrust on tourism, restructuring state-owned enterprises, privatising its national airlines, and revamping the tax system to get back on its feet.

“We had extremely stringent rules during the COVID-19 lockdown, which is what helped us keep our infection rates really low. But we were also among the ones to have opened up before anyone else, because we could not keep our economy shut indefinitely,” says Dushan Wickramasuriya, Director of Marketing at the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, Ministry of Tourism and Aviation.

New strategies afoot

The focus now is on research-driven “programmatic social media campaigns” that attract tourists based on their needs. “We have always had a steady flow of visitors from India—interest from there has never waned. Sri Lanka is also great for destination weddings and shooting films. Did you know The Bridge on the River Kwai was shot here?” adds Wickramasuriya.

He believes that Sri Lankans are inherently very resilient, bouncing back successfully after every fall. Locals came forward to support themselves and the economy by setting up small businesses—like bed-and-breakfast services—in their homes during months of peak crisis, and in order to aid them in the process, the government has now made it easier to register for hotel licenses. At present, the authorities are also taking renewed interest in training their workforce in the tourism and hospitality industries, to better cater to visitors who had been discouraged to set foot in the country in the recent past, owing to news of the ongoing crisis. “Yes, the situation did become difficult, but we are committed to making things better. I think it’s the perfect time to visit Sri Lanka now as our currency has devalued so much,” the official laughs. On the day this story was written, one Indian Rupee could buy 3.75 Sri Lankan Rupees, and according to Wickramasuriya, there is no other destination that provides as much “value for money” as their country does right now.

He also emphasises that today, the process of applying for a Sri Lankan tourist visa has been made easier, with acceptance of requests taking as little as a few minutes’ time. “Earlier, visa requests were left to the discretion of the immigration officer. But after streamlining the system and making it online, it’s only made visiting us simpler,” he says.

However, Karti (name changed on request), a resident of Colombo in his twenties, believes the road to recovery is tedious and long. He remembers how only a while ago, restaurants and hotels had to work for far fewer hours with a significantly whittled down staff. “People were also hoarding water, food, everything. Schools and colleges were shut, as were the printing presses, so we did not even have newspapers for days. Till today, domestic flights are not operational, and things have only gotten progressively worse over the past four years. There is a lot of ground to cover.”

In 2018, 5.6 per cent of Sri Lanka’s GDP came from tourism, which amounted to roughly US$4 billion. Two years later, it sharply plummeted to a meagre 0.8 per cent at the behest of a raging pandemic. In a population of about 21 million, over three million are directly or indirectly employed by the tourism sector, which means the state does not have a choice but to pull every string to resuscitate the momentum they had before entering this period of adversity. According to Ruwan Waidyaratane, Managing Director at Hayleys Advantis—a private transport and logistics company headquartered in Colombo—efforts being made seem promising. “That’s also because Sri Lanka has amazing repeat value for visitors. We have so many people, especially from India, coming here year after year and are never tired of it. The country just has so much to offer,” he says.

Travelling in the aftermath of a pandemic

With countries having resumed their “old normal” routines, and the World Health Organisation announcing last month that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, it is safe to say that people are aching to venture out again. “Money does not seem to be an issue for people who really want to travel again,” says Gerard Victoria, Director and CEO at Hayleys Aviation, who observes that even Sri Lankans are raring to go. “Before the pandemic, over a million people were travelling out of Sri Lanka annually. We are staring at similar figures now already. The same is happening in India and several other countries, because people are done staying at home,” he says.

Karti, however, disagrees. The solution is not that straightforward, according to him. “It’s still not easy for us to travel out because our jobs are not stable yet. The government might be pushing to make travel lucrative again within Sri Lanka, but the process is slow. These days, if you are new to the country as a tourist and don’t know the local language well, you might be at a higher risk of being cheated by the tuk-tuk or cab drivers, or even shopkeepers, because they want to make up for all the money they have lost in the past few years. More than ever before, people are getting looted and harassed, and it’s no longer safe to travel alone after sunset, especially for women,” he says.

But the tourism ministry insists that it’s lending an ear to these concerns, and in order to alleviate such anxieties, a state-funded app is already in the pipeline. It attempts to be a one-stop solution for all tourist queries—from booking one’s commute, stay and meal reservations, to sightseeing recommendations across the country. Clearly, the way forward for Sri Lanka is digital. “We aren’t spending as much on traditional advertising anymore. Earlier, we used to attend at least seven to eight travel fairs annually. This time, we only went to two. We won’t stop using traditional media, but we want to focus more on social media now,” says Wickramasuriya.

Additionally, with India’s Cordelia Cruises partnering with Advantis in Sri Lanka to widen the scope of luxury travel in the island nation, the latter’s government is even more hopeful about making a quicker economic turnaround. “If we can keep up this momentum, we should be able to easily hit the US$1.3 billion-mark in tourism revenues in the coming year,” the official says. The cruise line’s MS Empress vessel made its maiden international sail from the Chennai Port to Sri Lanka earlier this month, and the company aims to make this a regular offering to its growing clientele.

“People in both Chennai and Sri Lanka are so welcoming and warm. They just value their lives so much, and want to enjoy the time they have by going out with friends and family now more than ever,” says Jurgen Bailom, President and CEO at Cordelia Cruises. This undertaking is an attempt to “position both India and Sri Lanka as premier destinations for discerning travellers across South Asia,” according to him, as it opens up multiple avenues to “wake up in a new place, every single day.”

Also Read: Why Dubai’s Museum of the Future is a thrilling trip

Also Read: How to look good on your holiday

Also Read: 5 luxe travel experiences in India for the summer