UNDP to develop roadmap for tourism with industry stakeholders

• Tourism and Aviation Ministry, SLTDA, UNDP co-convene meeting with development partners today
• Focus on ‘Putting People First: Building a More Resilient Tourism Sector in Sri Lanka’
• Roadmap intends to catalyse development of framework to support new strategic plan, vision for tourism 2021-2024

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has come on board to facilitate the development of a roadmap towards ‘Building a Safer and Resilient Tourism Sector in Sri Lanka: Post COVID-19’, to better assess the rapidly evolving pandemic and its crippling impact on the tourism sector.  

This national roadmap is being developed collaboratively by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA, UNDP other UN agencies including the International Labour Organization (ILO) and World Tourism Organization (WTO) and development partners such as World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Union (EU), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Australia and other key stakeholders. 

This national roadmap is intended to catalyse the development of a framework to support the development of a new Strategic Plan and Vision for tourism 2021-2024. The first in a series of more consultations with development partners convened under the theme; ‘Putting People First: Building a more Resilient Tourism Sector in Sri Lanka’ on Monday, 29 June in Colombo, will discuss this draft roadmap further. 

As Sri Lanka tourism seeks to springboard from recovery to become a more agile and resilient sector, the meeting will be co-chaired by SLTDA and UNDP, and will engage key decision-makers from key ministries and development partners to discuss the current situation as well as priority directions for sustainable and innovative interventions for longer term resilience of Sri Lankan tourism.

UNDP said the strategic high-level meeting on Monday, first in a series of more consultations will aim to facilitate greater input, interest and commitment from development partners towards the development and operationalization of the roadmap, whilst creating new partnerships and donor commitments for the implementation of the roadmap under the Government’s overall vision. 

Tourism is a vital economic sector for Sri Lanka, accounting for 5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and directly employing 250,000 and indirectly up to 2 million persons. It is one of the worst impacted socio-economic sectors from the COVID-19 crisis. 

The UNDP has been working with the Ministry of Tourism and Aviation and SLTDA — the Government authority tasked with planning, development, regulation, and policy implementation of tourism in the country, over the past few months to revive and build a more resilient tourism Sector in Sri Lanka.