Govt. puts draft National Tourism Policy for public review

 Tourist arrivals have increased following the vaccination roll out and several airlines resuming services to Sri Lanka post-COVID – File photo

• Plans to enforce National Tourism Policy by 31 January
• 4 key pillars of new policy focus on integrated SL including sustainability, informed stakeholders, incentives strategies 
• Following public opinion, draft policy will be gazetted and submit for Parliament approval

By Charumini de Silva

The Government has called for public views to complete the first draft of the National Tourism Policy blueprint, as part of its ongoing efforts to develop a more resilient sector.

Sri Lanka Tourism seeks to springboard from recovery to become a more agile and resilient sector. Over the past one year, the Tourism Ministry has taken many steps to formulate a National Tourism Policy for Sri Lanka and it has now come to the final stage of gathering public opinion to enact it. Target enforcement date of the national policy as per the Tourism Ministry is by 31 January 2022.

The meticulous management of the future challenges connected with the utilisation of the resources in the tourism sector has been mainly focused on four key pillars when drafting the new national policy. They include; i) Integrated Sri Lanka ii) Inclusive Sustainability iii) Informed Stakeholders iv) Incentives Strategies.

It is expected that these tourism policies will assist in the promotion and development of the industry, with a view to ensure the creation of a sustainable tourism industry. To achieve this, technical support and assistance have been provided under the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

“To formulate this National Tourism Policy, all the rules and regulations, guidelines pertaining to the tourism field have been taken into consideration,” Tourism Ministry Secretary S. Hettiarachchi told the Daily FT. 

Further, comments and suggestions were also gathered from State institutions and Provincial Councils involved in the tourism sector along with the inputs made by the private sector, other relevant stakeholders and representatives too were taken into consideration.

“The key points of agreement and disagreement to facilitate the process of conciliation and validation of the major orientations of the future public tourism policy had been identified after several engagement discourse towards formulating a national blueprint,” he said.

The Tourism Ministry requests those public interested to send in their valuable comments and suggestions before 22 December by post or e-mail to [email protected].

“Following the public opinion, we want to have a ratification and for that a meeting (physical) with all stakeholders will be held to validate the policy. Thereafter, it will be gazetted and submitted to the Parliament for final approval,” Hettiarachchi said.

As per the draft blueprint, from 2009 to 2018 international tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka increased by 475%, while the income generation of $ 3.9 billion in 2017 was up by 1,150% to $ 4.4 billion in 2018. Tourism industry accounted for 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), directly employing 250,000 and indirectly up to two million persons. It is one of the worst impacted socio-economic sectors from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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

The draft national tourism policy has been published on the official website of the Ministry of Tourism, www.tourismmin.gov.lk.