A fruit seller slices open a coconut deftly with a knife and hands it to a customer, before turning to serve the next.
Around him, waiting patiently, are a mix of people.
Vehicles have pulled up to the side of the road, with drivers waiting for refreshing drinks before resuming their journeys.
Sri Lanka, once deserted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is bustling again.
And across the island is a most welcome sight: Foreign tourists, who contribute significantly to the country’s economy.
A tourism hotspot offering surf, sun, sand, cool hinterlands, and UNESCO-protected sites of cultural and architectural significance, Sri Lanka relies heavily on visitors, who before the pandemic accounted for about $5 billion of foreign exchange earnings or almost 5 percent of gross domestic product.
Successive COVID-19 lockdowns since March 2020 resulted in the tourism sector grinding to a complete halt, depriving thousands of people of their livelihoods.
Crushed by an economic crisis due to dwindling foreign reserves and mounting foreign debt, Sri Lanka is desperate to revive the tourism industry, with a target of making 2022 the “Visit Sri Lanka Year” and generating $10 billion from the sector by 2025.
January has proven that Sri Lanka may be on course to meet the target. Close to 30,000 people have arrived in the country in the first 10 days of 2022, mostly from Russia, India, Ukraine, the UK and Germany, despite global fears of the spread of the new, highly contagious omicron variant.
In Europe, there is a thought process of relaxing and dealing with the virus, as stated by Kimarli Fernando, Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority.
EU countries treat COVID-19 like the flu, suggest people get used to living with it, and treat the virus as an endemic disease. So, this will not pose a problem.
She said that the tourism authority expects to see about 1 million tourists visiting the country this year half the number of visitors in 2018, which was Sri Lanka’s best year on record in terms of tourism arrivals.
Almost 63 percent of Sri Lanka’s 22 million people have already been fully vaccinated, with tourism workers receiving jabs on priority basis to facilitate the swift reopening of the travel industry and revival of the economy.
Fernando added that besides vaccinations, tourism staff has also been properly trained to deal with the outbreak.
Tour guides, drivers are all trained. In public, everyone is wearing their masks.
Everyone is diligent, in terms of sanitizing and adhering to health precautions, she added.
But omicron is not the only factor that could pose a challenge to local hospitality businesses.
To shore up its currency reserves, the government last year imposed a broad import ban to shore up foreign reserves, triggering shortages of fuel and price hikes for food and other essential goods.
Harpo Gooneratne, president of the Colombo City Restaurant Collective, stated that he believed the industry, which has already withstood many challenges, will “manage.”
Tags: COVID-19 pandemic, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Unesco World Heritage Site
