The Virgin Girl and the Tourism Secretary

By The Doorman

The THASL AGM and its customary dinner extravaganza that follows would have been what it normally is; hospitality honchos backslapping each other as they are prone to do and readying for another year of skull-duggery and carpet bagging.

But this year, they did not reckon with a Secretary’s presence. PBJ had decided to accompany his master, the affable Minister of Economic Affairs who likes to listen rather than shoot his big mouth. That chore he leaves to his erstwhile Secretary. And doesn’t the man like his sojourn in the spotlights!

For Sri Lanka’s premier hoteliers though, he had admonitions to proffer. To start with, he rapped THASL President Anura Lokuhetty on the knuckles for daring to suggest that marketing must supersede product development. He said vainly that time would tell, as the genial Tourism Chairman Nalaka Godahewa smiled coyly!

He next pooh-poohed the notion that land prices for hotel development should be cheap! He reminded those present that even hoteliers were citizens; the Secretary, who also manhandles the Finance portfolio, plainly suggested that the Government’s economic fundamentals were largely beneficial and on track to making this nation the envy of the world. Not soon enough but in the time to come was the refrain! Fair enough, nodded the hoteliers, nursing their Black Label and yearning for a dinner going cold!

And as the more weary members were into snooze mood or incandescent gossip, PBJ picked his spot, choosing to put Presidential Advisor and a former Tourism Secretary Sarath Amunugama back on the beach as it were.

Not willing to accept the fact that Sri Lanka was not the only girl on the beach, PBJ exalted that Sri Lanka was the only virgin girl on the beach. And suddenly the dinner party swung into buzz mode, with the ladies clutching their sequined handbags and the men calling for immediate refills.

There clearly was business to be done as PBJ intoned at his arrogant best that good things have their price. Alas, virgins don’t come cheap, do they, he deadpanned, taking the audience by their coattails and serving the dessert even before the meal had begun.

The first time I have been invited to attend a hotel industry event, he complained. Furthermore, you don’t deserve my attention unlike the apparel trade which rakes in over a billion dollars, he castigated. When you reach that kind of threshold then I will consider burning the night oil, he condescended.

Wow, what chicanery, fumed a top dog weeping into his red wine; did not the guy say that the 16 b which the nation may lose on oil hedging was chicken feed? Besides the point, said his midriff-revealing fatale partner, the Secretary just said that our per capita income was increasing so rapidly that developed nations were becoming increasingly envious.

Groaned an interloper who had dropped by, did he say anything about per capita expenditure? Hush, said his host, that is a matter for the CB Governor, the one who carries flowers in his buttonhole!

Event anchor Savithri drew the curtain with an apologetic ‘all good things must come to an end’ – or did she? Not before the hoteliers gobbled their food, drowned their sorrows and looked askance, as the Minister made amends by pressing flesh and making a walk around to reassure his industry that all was not lost. There was after all a virgin girl on the beach that the Secretary had left behind!