Why we can’t get back to Sri Lanka soon enough

• With the Foreign Office ban lifted, now might be the best time to visit — the island is uncrowded, and visitors and their tourist dollars can do a lot of good, says Chris Haslam

www.thetimes.co.uk: Last Friday’s lifting of Foreign Office advice against non-essential travel has sent a ray of hope to benighted Sri Lanka, and while the country is still a long way from recovery, those who have been say that now could be the best time to visit.

Deanne Barker and family, from London, are just back from Sri Lanka: a country famous not only for its natural attractions — beaches, rainforest and wildlife-filled national parks — but also its cultural wonders, its tea plantations and its cuisine.

Like many other British tourists, she chose to defy Foreign Office advice, buy insurance from a specialist provider and travel with the Sri Lanka specialist Experience Travel Group.

“We kept asking ourselves why anyone wouldn’t come to Sri Lanka,” she said. “While the emptiness was quite sad in some places, like the hotels where we were the only guests, in others it was nice to be one of the few rather than the many. In Udawalawe National Park, where our guide said the entrance queue was usually a mile long at this time of year, we drove straight in to see the elephants, and at Sigiriya — the rock fortress in the Cultural Triangle — it was an all but exclusive experience.”

Nightly power cuts were mitigated through the use of generators, Barker said, and the nationwide shortages of fuel and other goods, while apparent, did not affect any part of the holiday. 

“There wasn’t anything we couldn’t do as a consequence of either the shortages or the upheaval,” she said.

Sri Lanka is suffering its worst political and economic crisis since it gained independence from Britain in 1948, sparking protests that unseated the Government in July, ousting the prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, and his brother, the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country.

By 2019 tourism was generating 12% of GDP and was Sri Lanka’s third biggest contributor, but the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks virtually shut the industry down. In November of that year Gotabaya Rajapaksa made matters worse by cutting taxes in a bid to increase his popularity — the resulting 25% loss of government revenue led to a credit-rating downgrade in 2020. That denied Sri Lanka access to international money markets and forced it to use its £ 6.3 billion foreign reserve pot to service debt. Then Gotabaya banned the import of fertilisers in a disastrous attempt to make Sri Lanka organic — a move that wrecked the tea industry, the nation’s biggest export.

Inflation spiralled. Energy costs rocketed. Nine out of ten families were skipping meals and nearly three million Sri Lankans were receiving emergency aid. With foreign reserves now down to £ 1.5 billion, further import bans were imposed last week on 300 items, including chocolate, deodorants and “spirits, liqueurs and other spirituous beverages”.

“The big hotels have survived but people running small businesses have had an incredibly difficult time,” said Sam Clark at Experience Travel Group. “Restaurants have closed down and many freelance chauffeur guides, who are crucial to Sri Lankan tourism, have struggled to pay the leases on their cars.”

More than enough tourism industry workers remain to serve the needs of tourists, however, and some businesses are willing to cut prices to seal the deal.

“If you’re looking for a peak-season deal you could find it in Sri Lanka — but be careful about booking direct,” said David Hopps at the Sri Lankan tour operator Red Dot Tours. “There will be plenty of deals on the likes of Booking.com this season, but after three years with no revenue, some of those properties might not be how they look in the pictures.”

The Sri Lankan rupee has been collapsing, going from 226 to the pound in 2019 to 424 today, and while that won’t help visitors with hotels, which are priced in US dollars, it does mean your money will go further in the community.

The fuel crisis has abated with the introduction of rationing, with tourism vehicles entitled to increased allocations, and, says Hiran Cooray, chairman of the Colombo-based Jetwing Hotels, there’s enough food produced on Sri Lankan soil for all.

“Imported food items such as steaks and cheese are scarce, but thankfully today’s travellers don’t need these items on a two-week holiday. All our hotels are in operation with standby power when power cuts take place. We lost some staff — mainly to Qatar, which hired a lot of them to work at the World Cup — but we expect most to return. With the rupee crashing against sterling and attractions bereft of crowds, this is in my view the best time for visitors to come.”

As for the ban on imported spirits, “there’s plenty of locally made gin”, Cooray says. “There’s no Fever-Tree, but local tonic is available.” 

(Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-we-cant-get-back-to-sri-lanka-soon-enough-mvj82qt09?fbclid=IwAR39nKrZ3vLA2FVCVLTXwffKPi5CyFPv1o_i12aTYTD-v2TDzTLTU2sfhNE)