Sri Lanka is targeting $ 8 billion in tourism earnings by 2030, with the Government aiming to raise the sector\u2019s contribution to around 5% of GDP, by transforming the country into a higher-value tourism destination, Deputy Minister of Tourism Prof Ruwan Ranasinghe said on Friday (4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking on Ada Derana\u2019s<\/em> \u201cThe Public Square” programme, Ranasinghe said: \u201cSri Lanka\u2019s tourism sector is planning to move beyond simply increasing visitor numbers into focusing on attracting higher-spending tourists and generating greater economic value in terms of tourism. We have a plan by 2030 to achieve $ 8 billion from tourism earnings, which will be satisfactory for an island like Sri Lanka. In terms of capacity, and the numbers we can accommodate, with all that, a 5% GDP contribution from tourism should be also satisfactory because over tourism is not necessary for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo achieve the target, we have launched projects for which we are working on. We need to have a transformation for Sri Lanka\u2019s tourism product offer, and the global promotion campaign is in line towards that. The general infrastructure development such as railways, electrification, the metros, internal transport, and domestic aviation. With all of these measures, we are confident we can transform the industry into a high value industry, by making the sector a crucial source of economic activity and foreign exchange for Sri Lanka,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt the moment, Sri Lanka is going through a challenging situation with the Middle East war. In August 2026, we started with a daily tourist arrival of approximately around 6700 but finished with around 4000, where the numbers have dropped, with thousands of flights being cancelled,\u201d Ranasinghe said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), \u201cWeekly Tourist Arrival August 2026\u201d<\/em> report, the month started with a daily tourist arrival of 7,577 and ended with 4,142 arrivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn an overall perspective, in expenditure terms, we like to spend, for instance, $ 100 \u2013 $ 300 per tourist per day. But, we have to think if we are offering the right options for tourists to spend that amount. In other words, we need to transform Sri Lanka\u2019s tourism product offer for high value earning, with effective programs. We have started certain projects, for instance the \u201cThrive Colombo Project,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn terms of the overall economic contribution, for instance if Sri Lanka\u2019s economy is Rs 100 billion, it’s about Rs 3.54 billion direct contribution from the tourism sector, which is about 4%. But, this is not the real contribution of an industry like tourism. We have the direct economic impact, the indirect economic impact, and also the induced economic impact. All these three impacts together are the one which is coming from tourism, which has a wider impact through supply chains, employment and induced economic activity, which is significant for the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ranasinghe said: \u201cOne of the steps we have taken for the tourism sector is capacity enhancement. We have to start with connectivity. For instance, in the last month the industry started fresh three airlines such as VietJet and Vietnam Airlines, which are connected well globally. And with that regard, we can get some traffic to the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also added: \u201cSri Lankan Airlines in terms of capacity is very limited. Sri Lankan is not in a position to operate as a national carrier. But we have to look for other options. And we have started fresh connectivity points during the last 2 years, around over 10 points. So we are very much hopeful we can bring traffic even under this challenging situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Ranasinghe said: \u201cOur airport capacity is around 6-7 million maximum. But we are currently handling around 10 million per year, where we need to further expand the second terminal, the third terminal, which should be in operation. But unfortunately, for various reasons, this has not happened over the decades. But now, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has agreed to mobilise it by November. The government has taken a decision to spend Rs 15 billion to expand the existing one, with a $ 77 billion project launched by the World Bank in Colombo to transform colonial areas, and tourist areas. The initiatives we have taken, and the target is to uplift Sri Lanka\u2019s tourism product by 2030 into a different quality, so that tourists who visit the country will spend a higher number of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further, SJB Mahesh Senanayake argued: \u201cTourism is not a side business for Sri Lanka. We faced a period where there was a shortage of hope, shortage of dollars, shortage of resources, and the tourism sector was one of the industries that kept the country breathing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut historically, Sri Lanka\u2019s tourism has been treated as less important even though we say it is one of the main industries, because the regulatory mechanism has failed and the government has lacked to identify how to help the industry. We have lacked the focus on how to position Sri Lanka as a tourist destination, where we could do more as a country. One of the biggest challenges is connectivity. We don’t have many budget airlines flying into the country and also the country needs to have an effective framework to work in a timely manner, where it doesn’t affect the industry negatively,\u201d Senanayake said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source : The Morning <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sri Lanka is targeting $ 8 billion in tourism earnings by 2030, with the Government aiming to raise the sector\u2019s contribution to around 5% of GDP, by transforming the country into a higher-value tourism destination, Deputy Minister of Tourism Prof […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17692,"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17690\/revisions\/17692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enterprisenews.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}