Miss Earth visits as tourism earnings nears $1b by April

The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau commemorated World Environment Day with 2014 winner of the Miss Earth pageant Jamie Herrel.

Herrel’s visit to the island comes in the backdrop of a 13.6% year-on-year growth in tourism earnings, amounting to $ 956.8 million in the first four months of 2015.

Herell commended the efforts of Rotary Sri Lanka, HNB and the SLTPB in launching their landmark ‘One Million Tree Stories’ project, before planting the initiative’s 500,000th tree sapling at the SLTPB premises.

Key members of the SLTPB Board of Directors were in attendance including Vasantha Leelananda, Mahen Kariyawasam, Tissa Devindra, Asoka Hettigoda, Amal Gunatileka and SLTPB Chairman Rohantha Athukorala.

Commenting on the challenges facing Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, Athukorala noted that Sri Lanka had jumped 11 places in the Global Tourism Index in 2015, howeverhe cautioned that in the field of environmental sustainability, Sri Lanka had reached a low ebb, hitting a rank of 103.

Athukorala attributed this ranking to the fact that Sri Lanka’s forest cover recorded drastic depletion over the last two decades, falling from 54% down to 29% today.

Nevertheless, he noted that cumulative tourist arrivals during the first five months of 2015 had increased 14.5% YoY to 714,584 visitors and reiterated that the Ministry of Tourism was committed to balancing growth in arrivals with responsible management of the island’s environment, thereby protecting its rich natural beauty from pristine beaches to diverse fauna, including elephants and whales.

He added that the island’s rich cultural heritage would also have to be protected at a time when the country’s informal tourism sector has been developing creative lodging with eco-friendly properties and wildlife experiences unique to Sri Lanka.

Athukorala further noted that the improved tourism arrivals marked a positive development for Sri Lanka in the context of economic turmoil in the European Union and its effects on key tourist growth markets like Russia.

In that context, he stated that Sri Lanka Tourism would be taking proactive measures to aggressively promote the country in Scandinavian markets in order to counter the anticipated drop in arrivals from Russian and Ukrainian visitors the island.