Lassana Derana

Mother with her two kids under the morning sun. Pic. Udaya Wijesoma

Tourism strategy for poverty reduction

Vipula Wanigasekera

Caroline Ashley, Harold Goodwin and Dilys Roe through their work on Pro-Poor Tourism Strategies (PPT) shed some light on the need to ensure passing of tourism benefits to peripherals and to the masses which obviously is the political interest of any Government of the day.
Although vertical integration that takes place in a natural business environment enables growth and sustainability of tourism in general, it could be perceived as cartels that control the market and prices in general. Unfortunately the statistics do not show the real indirect benefits to the nation that need to be projected to assist policy making.

The research carried out in South Africa, Namibia, Uganda, Nepal, St. Lucia and Ecuador deals with the subject of pro-poor tourism (PPT) that generates net benefits for the poor. PPT is an overall approach, rather than aiming to expand the size of the sector. This approach is to unlock opportunities hitherto not seen and exploited.

Pro poor tourism goes beyond community tourism

As Sri Lanka has entered a new era and tourism has already started taking off, the subject is relevant at a time the authorities contemplate on product development particularly areas that have opened up for tourism. A vital part of product development is for economic gains to enhance the livelihood of the poor in the areas earmarked for development.

Tourism that is on a development path is expected to increase employment and reduce poverty. To achieve this in a true sense, the guidelines would identify the characteristics, one of which is labour intensive scale inclusive of women and the involvement of informal sector tourism thus harnessing tourism for pro-poor growth.

The previous case studies show in some countries that pro poor tourism strategies have not helped generating new opportunities and benefits for the poor. When this happens tourism will not seem so valuable to the people and so to the politicians. The public support for the industry will gradually diminish.

Easier said than done, so one may ask how such strategies are implemented to please all stakeholders including the informal sectors. The first step is said to be that those involved in planning tourism - policy makers, planners, businesses, consultants incorporate pro-poor concerns at all levels.

Theoretically it is explained as ‘bottom-up social mobilization to top-down investment packaging.’ Pro poor tourism thus goes beyond community tourism. It calls for diversity of actions, from planning, policy making, product and development, marketing.

The driving force of this understanding of the need to serve the poor, begins from the planning stage with the involvement of stakeholders, particularly when developing new locations and products and integrating them into the mainstream of tourism activities.

The private sector naturally demands business viability of any tourism venture in terms of the demand, product quality, service standards and skills. The customer orientation is a pre-requisite for business sustainability that forces them to meet certain business standards.

Private sector will therefore expect State support to harness social needs through various encouragements and incentives. For instance external funding may be required to cover the costs of partnerships and developing skills in rural areas.

Unless the youth in the areas of development are skilled , it will not be possible for them to be engaged when the products are ready for operations. This is similar to Safaris that are organized with equity share with neighbouring experts thus bringing in high percentage of local staff and supports culturally-based local attractions.
ILO Director-General Juan Somavia - through his work Reducing poverty through tourism also raises some valuable points. It touches on ‘ Barriers to tourism benefiting poor people’ with examples. Apart from low literacy and poor job skills, the gender norms affect the women from working in the tourism sector. This must be overcome through education.

The lack of finance, micro credit, or loan facilities to set up enterprises as well as seasonal variations may affect smaller business. In addition many poor communities may live remote from places where tourism flourishes and they lose the access to the products to do any business.

Indirect employment can be made possible if the area is simultaneously developed as a tourism village not only with supply units, shops but also entertainment. They require technical advice, support and particularly understanding of the tourism industry and a marketing drive.

The quality of food produced in nearby areas may not be suitable for tourists. This is a concern of hoteliers. Another point is that communities may be unaware of tourist expectations which is partly caused by lack of language skills.

Somavia’s recommendations include a) Encouraging dispersion of tourism to poor areas, through infrastructural investment and marketing, b) Revising regulations that impede the poor in employment or small business, and support small business more generally and c) Consulting with residents when making decisions about tourism in their areas.

Some developing countries have the problem of admitting that the country is in the developing stage. In tourism activities for instance, the visitors would be more than happy to engage themselves in an activity that would help the poor as part of their holiday. They return with the pleasant feeling that they have done something worthwhile in the country while having a holiday.

SRI LANKA’S LEGENDARY DOORMAN TURNS 90

February 14, 2010  02:06 pm

In 70 years of greeting guests to Sri Lanka’s venerable Galle Face Hotel, doorman K. Chattu Kuttan has hobnobbed with everyone from royal heads of state to Bond girls and Soviet cosmonauts.

Kuttan, who turns 90 on Monday, has watched the hotel change with the country, from colonial days, through independence and the dark decades of ethnic conflict.

And he has pretty much seen it all, from a Japanese Zero fighter plane crash-landing on the hotel grounds during World War II, to sultry film star Ursula Andress dancing in the ballroom on New Year’s Eve 1976.

Born in India’s Kerala province, Kuttan left his home and took the ferry to Sri Lanka’s northern seaport town ofTalaimannar and then made his way to Colombo in 1938.

He worked as a servant for one of Colombo’s elite families before landing a job at the hotel in 1942, weeks after the Japanese bombed the capital. He started as a waiter, and took 50 years to gravitate to the front door.

“Ceylon, as Sri Lankawas known, was a different country then. Famous people like Emperor Hirohito, Richard Nixon, Sir Laurence Olivier and George Bernard Shaw came and stayed with us,” Kuttan recalled.           

In colonial days, the adjoining Galle Face promenade that overlooks the Indian Ocean used to host horse races on the green. – (The News International)

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Sri Lanka at a Glance

Official name:	Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
Government type:	republic
Location:	Latitude 5° 55. to 9° 50. north, longitude 79° 42. to 81° 52., 650km north of the equator
Dimensions:	430km north to south, 225km east to west
Coastline:	1,340km
Area:	65,525km
Currency (code):	Sri Lankan rupee (LKR)
Independence:	4 February 1948
Administrative capital:	Sri Jayewardenepura
Commercial capital:	Colombo
Administrative divisions:	9 provinces; Central, North Central, North Eastern, North Western, Sabaragamuwa, Southern, Uva, Western, Eastern Province.
Climate:	Typically tropical, with a northeast monsoon (December to March) bringing unsettled weather to the north and east, and a southwest monsoon (June to October) bringing bad weather to the south and west
Terrain:	Mostly low, flat to rolling plain; mountains in south-central interior
Highest mountain:	Pidurutalagala, 2,524m
Highest waterfall:	Bambarakanda, 263m
National Flower	The Blue Water Lily (Nymphaea stellata).
National parks and nature reserves area:	8,000sq.km
Population:	21,128,773 (? Census)
Population growth rate:	1.3%
Population Density:	309 people per sq km
Life Expectancy at Birth	74 female, 64 male
Literacy rate :	Female 87.9 Male 92.5
Ethnic groups:	Sinhalese 73.8%, Sri Lankan Moors 7.2%, Indian Tamil 4.6%, Sri Lankan Tamil 3.9%, other 0.5%, unspecified 10% (2001 census)
Languages:	Sinhala (official and national language) 74%, Tamil (national language) 18%, other 8% Note: English (a link language commonly) is used in government and spoken competently by about 10% of the population
Religion:	Buddhist 69.1%, Muslim 7.6%, Hindu 7.1%, Christian 6.2%, unspecified 10% (2001 census)
Time zone:	Sri Lanka Standard Time is five and a half hours ahead of GMT. (Allowance should be made for summer-time changes in Europe.)
International dialing:	+94
Electricity:	230 . 240 volts, 50 cycles AC. If you travel with a laptop computer bring a stabilizer
Economy:	Sri Lanka.s most dynamic sectors are food processing, textiles and apparel, food and beverages, port construction, telecommunications, and insurance and banking. In 2006, plantation crops made up only 15% of exports (90% in 1970), while textiles and garments accounted for more than 60%. About 800,000 Sri Lankans work abroad, 90% of them in the Middle East. They send home more than US$1 billion a year.
Labour force	34.3% of the labour population is employed in agriculture, 25.3% in industry and 40.4% in services: 40.4% (30 June 2006 est.) The unemployment rate is 5.7% (2007 est.)
Agriculture & products	Rice, sugarcane, grains, pulses, oilseed, spices, tea, rubber, coconutsm milk, eggs, hides, beef, fish
Industries:	Processing of rubber, tea, coconuts, tobacco and other agricultural commodities; telecommunications, insurance, banking; clothing, textiles; cement, petroleum refining.
Exports:	Textiles and apparel; tea and spices; diamonds, emeralds, rubies; coconut products, rubber manufactures, fish
Imports:	Main import commodities are textile fabrics, mineral products, petroleum, foodstuffs, machinery and transportation equipment: $10.61 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.). Percentage of main commodities from main import partners: India 19.6%, China 10.5%, Singapore 8.8%, Iran 5.7%, Malaysia 5.1%, Hong Kong 4.2%, Japan 4.1% (2006)
Gross Domestic Product (GDP):	Purchasing power parity: $81.29 billion (2007 est.). Official exchange rate: $30.01 billion (2007 est.) Real growth rate: 6.3% (2007 est.) Per capita: $4,100 (2007 est.) composition by sector: Agriculture: 16.5% Industry: 26.9%
Gross National Product (GNP):	Sri Lanka is placed in 76th place in GNP figures of the world.s nations with $22.8billion (2005)
Flag description:	yellow with two panels; the smaller hoist-side panel has two equal vertical bands of green (hoist side) and orange; the other panel is a large dark red rectangle with a yellow lion holding a sword, and there is a yellow bo leaf in each corner; the yellow field appears as a border around the entire flag and extends between the two panels

http://inlanka.lkwebhost.com/

SRI LANKA’S WILDLIFE SANCTUARY SITES REOPENED FOR TOURISM

January 31, 2010  10:10 am

Two of Sri Lanka’s renowned wildlife sanctuary sites were reopened on Saturday after years of closure because of the conflict between the government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels, a government official said.

Ananda Wijesuriya, director of the Wildlife Conservation Department said the two sites were opened to the public on Saturday were located at southeastern and eastern parts of the island.

Kumana, a bird sanctuary and a main eco-tourism attraction, is 312 km southeast of the Colombowhile Lahugala, a wildlife park/ sanctuary reserve, is 318 km east of the capital.

They have been shut for tourists since 2005 when the fighting between the two sides escalated.

Both areas were under security clouds due to clashes until May last year when the rebels were defeated.

“After the end of the war we received security clearance,” Wijesuriya said.

The end to the civil conflict has made Sri Lanka a major tourism attraction, the tourism authority said.

Xinhua

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Sri Lanka No. 1 travel destination for 2010

Daily Candy Website proclaims 'Best place we've ever been'

The New York Times has named Sri Lanka as the No. One travel destination worldwide in a ranking of '31 Places To Go in 2010.' At the same time, Daily Candy, a luxury-living website, has devoted its entire travel issue to Sri Lanka, informing the readers that you'll be roaming the south for adventure (elephant safaris), history (colonial fort towns, old Buddhist temples), rain forests (and mountains and tea plantations), and beautiful beaches. It's pretty much the best place we've ever been.
Both articles note that security is no longer a concern since the recent successful conclusion of the conflict with the LTTE terrorists last year.
Tourism in Sri Lanka leaped forward in the last seven months, increasing at double digit rates each month since June 2009. Sri Lankan tourism officials plan to add 25,000 3-to-5 star hotel rooms to the island nation of 20 million people by 2016, many of them luxurious beach and mountainside accommodations like the ones the two articles rave about.
Sri Lanka expects more than 500,000 visitors in 2010, but more than two million annually six years from now. But while the number of tourists are increasing, the total number of visitors have yet to catch up with other Asian destinations. That makes Sri Lanka an affordable, relatively undiscovered gem, giving travellers a world unto themselves.
"People are discovering how wonderful Sri Lanka truly is," said Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka's ambassador to the U.S. We have many people to thank for making this country a peaceful, pleasant and prosperous place to live in. The leaders who successfully ended a long-war against terrorists now welcome tourists and foreign friends with open arms. Sri Lankans living abroad spread the goodwill and charm of the native land. As these articles proclaim, 'Sri Lanka is a beautiful place that is getting better.'
The Times reports that, 'The island, with a population of just 20 million, feels like one big tropical zoo: elephants roam freely, water buffaloes idle in paddy fields and monkeys swing from trees.
And then there's the pristine coastline. The miles of sugary white sand flanked by bamboo groves that were off-limits to most visitors until recently are a happy, if unintended byproduct of the war.'
Daily Candy observes: 'Sri Lanka is incredibly chic, very India meets Vietnam.
The Times reports that visitors can find pristine beaches -and still a few road checkpoints - in Northern Sri Lanka, where the fighting occurred. While a few military checkpoints remain, it reports, travellers can lounge on poolside hammocks under palm trees or snorkel in its crystal-clear waters.
Or they can order cocktails at the Nilaveli Beach Hotel a collection of recently renovated bungalows with private terraces.
Daily Candy takes readers on a cross-country tour of Sri Lanka, suggesting stops at Kandy, highland tea gardens and beaches, such as those in Tangalle and Galle. The swank Amanwella compound, consists of bungalows scattered across a coconut grove outside Tangalle. But the prices are more affordable than Aman's usual rates (a rare civil war perk).
Force yourself away from the blissful beach to visit Udawalawe National Park. You'll see monkeys and peacocks, but elephants are the main event.