War Drums

Local hotel bookings are seeing a definite slow down, as war fears begin to inspire jitters in the more wary European travellers.
ldblquote Hotel occupancies are currently at a healthy 60 percent. But though there have been no specific cancellations as such due to the war, we have seen a considerable slowing down over previous years in the number of bookings made
dblquote , said President of the Tourist Hotels Association, Kumar Mallimarachchi.rn

rnAfter taking a beating in 2001, concerted salvage efforts by industry over the past year have been paying off and local tourism had just begun looking up. rn

rnBut with an increasingly possible war in the Middle East, this has sparked fears that it might once again de-rail a hard won recovery.rn

rnThe largest number of travellers to Sri Lanka is from Western Europe, UK and Germany with over 60 percent of travellers from these regions.rn

rnldblquote On-going efforts to spread ourselves eastward and promote Sri Lanka in countries like India and China