The price and addiction of war too high

Sri Lanka is missing out on a great development opportunity in Tourism

When the creator designed the world he gave some countries a dollop of oil. Others got gold and silver and mineral deposits and to some he gave great scenic beauty. Every country to make its people progressively better off has to develop the natural resources it has inherited. We got great scenic beauty. A country like no other as we say in some tourist brochures. Sadly we have been able to gain only a small fraction of the potential. What the creator gave lies undeveloped and generates a mix of anger and sadness. To get the missed opportunity into a realistic perspective we should look at what some other countries who got the same goodies of great scenic beauty have done to exploit the opportunity. A good comparison is Thailand. They got the same cocktail of sandy beaches temples, ancient civilisations beautiful green countryside and friendly people. Our cocktail is more accessible, as the distances between our attractions are shorter. We are arguably ahead of Thailand as a destination.

The Sri Lankan experience

“Sri Lanka’s tourism industry a casualty of the civil conflict could become a principal beneficiary of a sustained peace. After facing promising prospects in the 1970’s, with yearly growth in tourist arrivals surpassing 20%, tourism collapsed with the onset of the civil conflict.”(source ADB) In 1982 tourist arrivals were a little above 400,000. “And while Sri Lanka drew about half a million tourist arrivals in 2003 Malaysia had reached 10 million in 2000 and Thailand the same number in 2001-even though all three countries had started from a similar base in the 1970’s.” source ADB

The sad story continued and in 2006 tourist arrivals we claimed were 559000. (This number is an exaggeration as it includes all foreign passport holders who came and this will include Sri Lankans, NGO’s and other non tourist visitors) Our foreign exchange earnings were 410 million US dollars.

The story in Thailand

In 2005 tourist arrivals were 11.6 million. This meant they had 20 times the number that visited Sri Lanka.

Thailand earned 9.2 Billion US dollars from tourism in 2005.This was 22times what Sri Lanka earned in 2006.Thailand’s earnings from Tourism WAS GREATER than Sri Lanka’s total exports which were 7.2 Billion Us dollars in 2006!

The Thai experience relates an interesting story. They offer tourists a very similar mix of attractions. This basket of sights as a destination attracted visitors from all over the world. It is by no means a destination mainly oriented to Western Europe. The number of visitors from East Asia was more than double the number from Europe. The visitors from the Americas was nearly double the total number of tourists to Sri Lanka What all this means is that we have a great hand as a destination, as what we have to offer is relevant to people in all parts of the world.

It was war that ruined it all

Our pattern of arrivals over the years is like a temperature chart of a patient who every time he gets better has a relapse and gets worse. Every time the civil conflict scenario deteriorated the arrivals declined. This sensitivity to conflict was demonstrated this year in Thailand. The political turmoil in that country resulted in a massive 15% decline in tourist arrivals in the first 8 months of this year.

The ganja of war

Sri Lanka has suffered from the ganja of war. War is addictive like ganja. Prabhakaran is addicted to it, after all these years it has to be obvious to him that he cannot establish a separate state through war. But he cannot give it up even though this addiction is causing huge hardships to the people in the North. Like all addicts they are blinded to the path and suffering inflicted on others.We also have addicts to the ganja of war in the south. They too are oblivious to the damage caused by war. The combination of these two groups of addicts to the ganja of war has materially harmed the growth and development of this country. A major casualty is tourism a goose that that can lay the golden eggs. It is now being slowly strangled to death.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/09/26/feat/05.asp)