Hotels for sale, industry awaits promos

Sri Lanka’s tourism industry reeling from the aftermath of the Easter bombings and unable to cope with the losses incurred is selling out some of its hotels in the absence of adequate promotions to recover.

“Most of the two and three star hotels are on sale around the country outside of Colombo,” City Hotels Association President M. Shanthikumar told the Business Times.

About 50 hotels, he explained are said to be on sale as these smaller star accommodation units are unable to survive.

Mr. Shanthikumar pointed out that in this respect over 10,000 direct staff and more indirect jobs will be lost due to this issue.

Congratulating the new President and Prime Minister he was confident they would give the leadership to take the industry forward.

He noted that the industry faced a harsh setback since the Easter bombings that rocked the industry and they were unable to even kick off the recovery plan they had pulled together.

In the wake of these developments the industry is now hoping the new administration would be able to expedite the promotions without delay.

“After April 21 the recovery didn’t happen and arrivals have dropped drastically and the average rate has also dropped and since then the hotels have been making losses,” he explained.

Colombo currently has close to 10,000 rooms from both the formal and informal sectors but by 2021/22 the industry would see an additional 6500 with ITC, Intercontinental, Marriott and Amari, Cinnamon Life, Next and Ritz Carlton joining the skyline.

The industry expects a 20 per cent drop from last year for December, however all events will continue as usual in Colombo for the season, Mr. Shanthikumar said. Though room rates have dropped, event based rates will continue as normal. (SD)