Travellers concerned by dengue epidemic

The dengue epidemic has raised concerns among travellers to Sri Lanka with the rising incidence of mosquito- related deaths and diseases, state tourism authorities said on Monday. Newly-appointed Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Chair man Udaya Nanayakkara told the Business Times that the number of arrivals was "a bit stagnant due to the dengue situation - so there is an element of worry."

The government needs to take proactive measures, he said adding that these were only concerns expressed by travellers and agents and that they had not had any cancellations due to the epidemic.

Stakeholders of the tourism industry were currently engaged in cleaning up their surroundings and properties to ensure the epidemic does not hurt visitors, it was pointed out. However, Mr. Nanayakkara noted that though concerns were being addressed to them there hasn't been a single case of a tourist getting affected by dengue.

He explained that though Galle and Trincomalee were areas of concern it was not a problem on the locations in proximity to the beach fronts. A high incidence of cases were reported from Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Kandy, Trincomalee, Kurune g a l a , Ratnapura and Kegalle where there were over 3000 cases reported from these areas for this year until July, according to the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health.

Tourist arrivals have been on a low with February, March and May recording drops of 0.1, 2.5 and 2.5 per cent respectively compared to 2016. April picked up with a surge in arrivals by 17.5 per cent. Last month the figure stood at 123, 351 which was a growth of 4.5 per cent compared to the same period last year. So far, arrivals have crossed the one million mark growing at 4.8 per cent compared to the first six months of last year.

Sri Lanka is a destination with a high degree of peace with the entire world knowing the fact that our troubled times are over. However we still are struggling to ensure a reasonable bottom line for all the industry investors.

The main reasons are being the supply of government- approved, star-rated accommodation providers being far in excess of the demand created. Unregistered apartments, villas and other accommodation providers are increasing their market share through online travel agents and most importantly Sri Lanka is falling behind in marketing. Certainly tourist arrivals are currently on a marginal growth, but if we do not resurrect the situation, we are not far from falling to negative growth levels.

When industry stalwarts recently got into a dialogue in regard to this crisis, although it was a friendly one, very strong differences of opinion were expressed.

However, my observations and view is that the growth of the informal sector is good and fantastic for a very short time for the country as a whole, and for any government in terms of the voter base. Yet, very few people in political circles, authorities and outside the industry would realise how detrimental it could be to an economy, when a well- structured and formulated industry drifts towards an informal one. This in the long term will affect the overall economy, tax revenue and quality and standard of the industry. When it happens eventually the destination would become cheap, low quality and driven by volumes. Is this where we want to go? Is this where the authorities and politicians want to push the country towards? NO!! None of them or any one of us wants it that way but by not being farsighted whether we like it or not, the industry is drifting in that direction.

If anyone looks at the minimum room rates policy, my answer to that is within the framework of an open economy policy, a controlled rate structure will not work nor has it ever happened. I recollect as way back in the 1990s when the IATA