Sri Lanka safe for visitors: Tourism Ministry
6/1/2006 14:34
Sri Lanka is launching a fresh publicity blitz to entice more tourists to
spend their vacation in the island country following an outbreak of fresh
violence in the northeast of the country, Daily News reported
Friday. Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism Prathap Ramanujam said the
island is safe and calm for visitors and urged tourists and travel agencies
overseas not to cancel travel plans. Those who have planned vacations in Sri
Lanka need not have safety worries. They can count on a warm welcome to this
country, Ramanujam said. The tourist arrivals plummeted with 48,457 tourists
arrival in November last year, pushing cumulative figures for the fist 11 months
in 2005 down 0.4 percent to 498,137 compared with same period of the previous
year, the Tourist Board said. For the fist 10 months in 2005, 92,163 Indian
visitors helped the segment grow 12.4 percent year-on-year, over a 19.4 percent
drop from Germany and a 7.2 percent drop from Britain- two of Sri Lanka's key
tourism markets. The Board hopes to promote these products by painting
billboards and busses throughout key Indian cities this year. Indians have
overtaken traditional Europe-heavy tourism market, to emerge as the single
largest source of tourists last year, the Tourist Board said. The upsurge of
violence in the North and East has given new jitters to the industry. Some 40
soldiers were killed by the rebels through a series of claymore mine attacks in
Dec. 2005 seriously endangering the Norwegian backed ceasefire.
Xinhua
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