Level-playing field key to tourism growth

agents initiated a concept called minimum rates for everyone, it did not hold. I can personally attest to this as some of the advocates of the programme fell victim to that by having to maintain a minimum rates structure, and most of them lost a huge market share.

Within an open economy framework the policies of the government will have to fall in line with the supportive global economies, the funding institutions, as none of them would endorse controlled and restricted policies. As a result no government would change laws to suit a controlled pricing policy. In the absence of such laws controlled pricing will never work.

It seems by and large, everyone is blaming the government for not doing their number promoting tourism. But I would fire all my canons at the industry for their weak, laid back, gullible and non- collective attitude and for not being aggressive and convincing to get tourism authorities to move forward on marketing and policy planning.

DMCs and accommodation providers are mushrooming – one should welcome investments for the industry and not fear competition, if they are all on an equal platform. Irregular and corrupt practices of non-regulated DMCs and accommodation providers need to be controlled.

It was just two weeks ago that Udaya Nanayakkara, an industry veteran and former World President of the Universal Federation of Travel Agents Association, was appointed Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau. In my view the industry is placing confidence in him to a very high degree, knowing the fact that he clearly understands the promotions and marketing aspects of the industry, having been in the travel and tourism Industry for a very long time.

Mr. Nanayakkara, when he served earlier in this position, played a big role many years ago in swinging the Indian market to Sri Lanka that we still continue to benefit from. With his new appointment, it is hoped that interaction between the industry and authorities would bring in fruitful results.