Sri Lanka Tourism Blog

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An earlier travel advisory imposed by the government of Belgium advising visitors to refrain from non-essential travel to Sri Lanka has been revised since yesterday.

The new advisory allows tour operators from Belgium to market Sri Lanka aggressively for the upcoming winter season. The relaxed travel advisory only mentions travel restrictions to the North and the Eastern regions and Yala.

It is hoped that the Belgium travel advisory will result in similar relaxations of travel advisory from other European nations as well.

United States Department of State updated its travel warning on Sri Lanka alerting the American citizens traveling to or living in Sri Lanka about the continuing danger of terrorist attacks throughout the country.

The updated warning urged the Americans to carefully evaluate the risks of travel to Sri Lanka and specifically warned against traveling to northern and eastern areas.

It warned the Americans to avoid large crowds and public gatherings and particularly political rallies, military bases, and government and military vehicle convoys, which are frequent targets of LTTE attacks.

Despite that no tourist is being targeted in the recent bus and train station bombings the travel warning urged the visitors no to use public transportation.

“In light of attacks against civilian buses and trains, American citizens are strongly advised against traveling by bus or train in Sri Lanka. U.S. Government personnel are currently prohibited from using these modes of transportation,” it said.

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United States Department of State (DOS) today updated its travel advisory on Sri Lanka specifically warning Americans against travel to northern and eastern areas of Sri Lanka. DOS warned the Americans against traveling particularly to LTTE-controlled areas in the north saying they may pose severe hazards.

The travel warning said despite the Sri Lankan government’s assurance that it has effectively controlled the eastern part of the country since July 2007 the security is not yet guaranteed.

It said that although other parts of the country are mostly safe, the LTTE has conducted attacks outside of the northern and eastern areas citing recent LTTE air attacks on the Katunayake Air Force Base and the oil facilities in Colombo and the October 15th attack on Army camp in the Yala National Park in southeastern Sri Lanka.

The advisory restricts official travel by U.S. Government personnel to areas north of a line following the highway from Puttalam through Anuradhapura to Polonaruwa, Bibile, and Pottuvil in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka and prohibits unofficial travel.

French travel agents are visiting Sri Lanka on a tourism promotion which includes what’s billed as a treasure hunt where they search for clues and discover the island’s hidden charms, the Tourist Board said Monday.

The visit by over 40 French travel agents and journalists comes with the French Foreign Ministry’s complete lifting of a travel ban on Sri Lanka that was prompted by an escalation in the ethnic war.

Most travel advisories in key tourism generating markets in Europe have already been relaxed and the tourism office hopes Australia and Canada too will follow suit, Mudadeniya said.

Tourist arrivals from the countries with relaxed advisories have already picked up and traffic that was supposed to reach Myanmar has started to flow to the island, tourism officials said.

The one week visit by the French group will consist of familiarization tours and events such as cycling, trekking, canoeing and walking.

With the group are five journalists from France, Dileep Mudadeniya, Additional Director, and Tourism Promotional Bureau told LBO.

The promotional event which is in progress, Mudadeniya said, is supposed to get wide coverage in the media in France.

“That will give them enormous confidence to come to Sri Lanka,” he said.

The ‘Treasure Hunt’ is meant to enable the visitors to discover exceptional tourist sites by interacting with the local communities.

Sri Lanka predicts tourist numbers will recover in the next three months as bookings for the forthcoming winter season look good, officials said.

They expect the tourism sector to benefit from the diversion of tourists from Myanmar which has been rocked by violent public protests that included Buddhist monks against 45 years of military rule.

The protests were followed by a bloody crackdown that left 13 persons including a Japanese journalist, dead.

Sri Lanka has been experiencing a downturn in foreign visitors this year with arrivals slipping 15.5 percent in August.

The total number of arrivals from January to August this year has fallen 22.6 percent to 313,675 from 405,488 last year.

Sri Lanka received 559,603 visitors the whole of last year.

On October 02^nd , the French Government officially lifted the adverse Travel Advisory affecting Sri Lanka, with immediate effect. The French Government has communicated with citizens that “traveling to Sri Lanka is as good as Travelling to UK or any other similar country.” this is a green light for Sri Lanka lovers to visit our country.

The Sri Lanka Tourist board had invited an independent Security team from France to visit Sri Lanka and assess the security situation here. The French Government acting on this report has completely relaxed the adverse travel advisory which has been imposed in Sri Lanka on 2006. However, the North and East have not been ruled out as insecure zones.

The Minister for Toursim Milinda Moragoda and his team were able to successfully convince France on the recent security situation.

The Ministry of Tourism, SriLankn Air Lines and Travel agents and other stake holders have all cooperated with the Government in this effort.

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As a last minute travel option, you should try booking at a travel lodge instead of your usual hotels. If you have managed to get your hand at cheap flights , it is even better. You don’t have to bother about rental cars though.

Luxury Sri Lankan holidays are up for grabs at bargain-basement prices after a leading hotel group slashed prices by 50%.

The Aman group, which runs five-star properties across Asia, has cut its room rates on the island, bringing down the cost of a double from £250 per night to £125 in the Amanwella beach resort, and from £316 to £158 at the Amangalla townhouse, in the 16th-century port of Galle, a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The discount remains valid until September 2008 and was introduced, Aman says, “following a decline in international tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka associated with the impact of civil conflict”.

Sources within the Sri Lanka Tourist Board, however, suggest that Aman is exaggerating the effects of the unrest to conceal the fact that its rooms are overpriced, and British tour operators are reporting increasing demand for the island’s tropical beaches.

“Sri Lanka is well on the road to recovery,” says Frances Tuke, of Abta. “First Choice has launched weekly charter flights and arrivals last year were back to 90% of pretsunami levels.”

Vast stretches of Sri Lanka’s coastline were devastated by the 2004 tsunami, and the recovery of the island’s tourist industry has been hindered by an increase in violence between government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists.

No tourists have been hurt in the troubles, but the island remains on a Foreign Office advisory list that also includes Afghanistan, Colombia, Israel and Iraq.

Tourist arrivals in the first half of this year dipped by 24.4% but with the industry counting on the improved prospects for the upcoming season has been backed by travel advisories that have been relaxed in the run-up to the winter season just ahead.

In this respect it was pointed out recently that the government of Netherlands, which had a negative travel advisory on Sri Lanka has relaxed its advisory to enable Dutch Tour Operators to aggressively market Sri Lanka. The advisory which earlier started that it was unsafe to travel to Sri Lanka, now sates that Dutch travellers must b cautious when traveling and that they must use formal means of transport and tour operations.

In 2006, there were 19,360 numbers of tourist visitors from the Netherlands. Between January and July in 2006, the Dutch arrivals stood at 12,593 and for the same period in 2007, it was 10,083 register in a drop of 19.9%.

“We expect the arrivals from the Netherlands now progressively to get back to normalcy with the softening of the Travel Advisory. Sri Lanka Tourism will carryout strong promotions in the Dutch market in the future to regain and develop strong market share. We are also thankful to our Ambassador in the Netherlands Ms. Pamela Deen for her determined efforts made to bring this change” said Renton de Alwis, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board.

Minister of Tourism, Milinda Moragoda who will be leading a promotional delegation to France after the softening of the French Travel Advisory, has asked Sri Lanka Tourism officials and the private sector to also meet with the Dutch Tour Operators to discuss future plans.