Lanka, a safe destination for tourists, say World Beauty Queens

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

ACCOLADE: Sri Lanka is one of the safest places I visited and I want to travel to Sri Lanka once again, said Tatana Kucharova, an 18-year-old student from the Czech Republic, who won the Miss World 2006 beauty contest.

Speaking at a media briefing at the host hotel, Galadari Colombo, Kucharova said that once she gets back she would strongly recommend people to visit Sri Lanka.

She said that Sri Lankan culture is of very high value and the people are very friendly.

She made these comments in the backdrop of some Western countries publishing adverse travel information against Sri Lanka.

Three other country titleholders for Miss World are from Italy, Germany and India who also endorsed the Kucharova’s statement with regard to safety too are presently in Sri Lanka.

The new Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourist Board, Renton de Alwis said that the visit of the Beauty Queens would have a major positive impact for the leisure industry in Sri Lanka. “This is a very good PR exercise for the country,” he said.

General Manager, Galadari Hotel, Sampath Siriwardane said that this visit would help to put Sri Lanka once again in the world tourist map as a safe destination.

Additional Director, Sri Lanka Tourist Board, Dilip Mudadeniya said that along with the Beauty Queens there are several foreign journalists present here who would carry a positive message about Sri Lanka to the Western world. “This is better than us telling the world,” he said.

He said that unlike in other countries such as Bali, Egypt, Thailand tourists have never been targeted and this a major plus point for the country.

Series of new promotion drives have been launched in India to woo more Indian tourists, which had the highest arrival figure (120,000) last year. “These promotions will attract over 20,000 Indian tourists,” he said.

Meanwhile the leisure industry breathed a sigh of relief subsequent to a Cabinet decision that would classify tourist hotels to the industrial sector and provide them a rebate on the electricity tariff.

In addition the decision to provide a debt moratorium to the Susahanaya loans obtained to rebuild the hotels after the tsunami too has been a welcome and timely move.

“Some of the small-time hotels especially in the South and in Negombo have already started retrenching their staff since they were facing colossal financial constrains due to high electricity bills and high monthly settlement bills of Susahanaya loans,” said an official of the Tourists Hotels Association of Sri Lanka.

“Some of the tourist hotels were also contemplating taking legal action against the Government for having different tariffs for the industrial sector and the leisure industry,” he said.

The Government has also decided to defer charging US $ 10 from tourists as a Visa fee and would be providing special concessions for participants for the ITB, (World Tourism Exhibition) in Berlin, Germany next month.