Tourism Chamber calls on Deputy Minister of Economic Development

Wednesday, 9 October 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

With the dawn of peace in the Eastern province, tourism has started booming with international and domestic tourists visiting the East having started exploring the region as a newly opened destination with many tourist attritions. However it has become a serious problem with the current skills level of tourist service providers in the province.

“After taking into consideration of the facts, the chamber of tourism has formulated a comprehensive set of tourism development proposals to be implemented,” said President of Chamber of Tourism and Industry Sri Lanka A.M. Jaufer. Jaufer who met the Deputy Minister of Economic Development yesterday handed over a document containing the proposals to develop tourism in the Eastern province giving special emphasis on skills development and capacity building for service providers specially in the SME sector in the Eastern Province Hospitality industry. The Deputy Minister agreed to provide his fullest corporation to the Chamber of Tourism by requesting the Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority to fully support the realisation of the proposals submitted by the Chamber. “With the Government targeting 2.5 million tourist arrivals by 2016, the majority of these tourists are expected to attract to the Eastern Province and the manpower requirement for the industry of the Eastern region will also rise accordingly. It is important to meet the target of the trained manpower requirement of 500,000 in 2016,”the Chamber said. The Secretary General of the Chamber U.P.S. Pathirana also participated in the discussion with the Deputy Minister of Economic Development.