Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Thursday, 30 January 2025 00:06 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
From left: Jetwing Symphony Chairman Hiran Cooray, Ernst & Young Climate Change and Sustainable Services Senior Director Sampath Jayawardena, SLSEA Deputy General Director Harsha Wickramasinghe, SLTDA and SLTPB Chairman Buddhika Hewawasam, and Moderator Sashika Kaluwahewa at the Climate Friendly Travel Forum in Colombo – Pix by Ruwan Walpola
By Divya Thotawatte
Battered by years of economic and human resource challenges, Sri Lanka’s tourism sector is now at a critical juncture where embracing sustainability and climate-friendly practices would transform the island’s tourism industry, redefining its place on the world stage, a panel of experts said recently.
This insightful panel discussion on climate-friendly travel was hosted by Jetwing Hotels at their city hotel, Jetwing Colombo Seven. Bringing together the public and private sectors to explore the future of sustainable and responsible tourism in Sri Lanka, the panel featured distinguished guests, including Sri Lanka Tourism Development Board (SLTDA) and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Chairman Buddhika Hewawasam, Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA) Deputy General Director Harsha Wickramasinghe, Ernst and Young Climate Change and Sustainability Services Senior Director Sampath Jayawardena, and Jetwing Symphony Chairman Hiran Cooray.
The experts highlighted that in addition to an urgent need for eco-conscious tourism amid the impacts of climate change, there was also a growing preference among travellers for sustainability initiatives. With regard to this transformation in the tourism sector, they explained that Sri Lanka had an opportunity to adopt practices that would position the country as a global leader in responsible tourism.
Jayawardena said, “Tourists are increasingly conscious about the sustainability initiatives of hotels right now. They want to experience sustainability or eco-tourism in our country. Sri Lanka is a very diverse country, and we have biological hotspots where tourists can visit and experience this. But as organisations we should be the pro front of it— we want to achieve a community advantage over other destinations.”
Embedding sustainability into the business goal was the way to go, Jayawardena added, noting that Sri Lanka could differentiate itself from other destinations and become more attractive to tourists if both the private and public sectors worked towards the goal.
Adding to this, Cooray spoke about how Sri Lanka could achieve its goal with relatively little effort than its competitors. He explained that following Costa Rica as a model for sustainable development and tourism, Sri Lanka, with its natural beaches, mountains and rainforests, also had the opportunity to integrate its natural and environmental features into every aspect and sector to provide an eco-friendly experience that would not be possible for most countries.
“There is a tremendous opportunity for us to position this country into the jewel of Asia; the most beautiful, most sought after country, while positioning Sri Lanka as one of the most sustainable destinations. Sustainability can be the story that makes us different from other countries,” Cooray noted.
Hewawasam elaborated on how redefining luxury was key to positioning and growing as a climate-friendly destination at the global level. “The tourist perspective has changed, luxury has been redefined. What people are looking for is being redefined. So, you need to be designing something new. We need to recognise environmentally sensitive, more sustainable–oriented designs and construction modes,” said Hewawasam.
This process towards more eco–friendly designs requires much global knowledge, and acquiring that knowledge is one of the key goals of SLTDA. Reinventing the wheel was not important, but bringing that necessary knowledge to Sri Lanka using the support of organisations such as UNWTO (UN Tourism) and taking determined efforts to be responsible was, he said.
Responsible tourism: The role of the industry
Hewawasam highlighted that often, particularly mid and lower-tier hotels could pose significant environmental threats, underscoring the need for stricter environmental sensitivity standards. He called on industry pioneers to guide the sector towards eco-friendly practices. However, environmental sensitivity is also the responsibility of architects and designers as much as it is of hoteliers, Hewawasam pointed out.
He further shared, “we need to use infrastructure development and bring more stakeholders to the picture. We are working with solar energy providers, Korean funding agencies, and other partners to offer low-interest loans for renewable energy adoption.”
Addressing carbon emissions across all sectors was also a primary goal in making Sri Lanka a green tourist destination, Wickramasinghe emphasised. While the country’s carbon emissions were relatively low in comparison to global giants, it could be reduced further, especially through tourism.
“Many people mistake the power industry as the main culprit of carbon emissions, but it is actually the transport industry. But even with the transport and power industries combined, our country has a small, negligible net carbon output actually of 4000 GHz. We are not far from declaring carbon neutrality as a country, so with swift investments and necessary actions, we can reduce even the little bit of carbon we emit from our energy systems, and become a green destination without much trouble,” he explained.
Wickramasinghe pointed to the success of Sri Lanka’s solar energy initiatives as an example of the progress that had already been made, highlighting that SLSEA had pioneered the introduction of a solar robot system that generates over 12% of the country’s electricity from rooftops. Sri Lanka was only second to China in terms of installed solar capacity, with 27% of its energy coming from solar, he said.
The role of the private sector in achieving Sri Lanka’s renewable goals, especially in tourism, was also vital, highlighted Wickramasinghe, stating that regulations are already being developed to encourage industries to align with the sustainability goals. “We have made quite a stringent regulation and it is already in place for the banking and supermarkets industries. We are looking at imposing it on other sectors as well.”
Stressing the importance of this transition into integrating more eco-practices, Jayawardena highlighted the global context in which Sri Lanka was operating. “I often get this question: why does our country need to worry about taking action on climate change, given that our contribution to the world’s GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions is like 0.08%. We can conduct our business as usual. But Sri Lanka is also a party to the Paris Agreement which was signed in 2016, and we also have the responsibility to take mitigation and adaptive actions to reduce global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century.”
Jayawardena also pointed out the Government’s ambitious target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, generating 70% of Sri Lanka’s electricity from renewable energy by 2030. To achieve these targets, the tourism industry must contribute by investing significantly in renewable energy, he urged, explaining that initiatives like having solar panels that generated 60% of a hotel’s energy consumption would be a step in the right direction.
Pioneering initiatives in Sri Lanka tourism
While regulatory frameworks and Government targets set the direction, the tourism industry has already begun adopting eco-tourism practices and initiatives.
Jetwing Hotels has been one of the pioneers to prioritise sustainability and environment-friendliness throughout the past few decades, setting the stage for a broader transformation. Cooray discussed some of the initiatives Jetwing Hotels had taken over the years, underlining how the group was not driven merely by trends or regulations, but through a passion and commitment to protecting the environment and being responsible as a business organisation as well.
“We went through a really tough time. 2019-2023 was a very difficult period for tourism and we bore the brunt of it economically, as well as losing a lot of our human resources. Most of them left the country and went abroad. But why we remained focused is because that is something that our founder instilled in us, even in the 1980s before these big words like ‘sustainable tourism’ and ‘responsible tourism’ were coined.”
Cooray highlighted how Jetwing Hotels had been ahead of its time in implementing eco-friendly practices. He noted how in 1993, Jetwing had been the first company to build a sewage treatment plant. It was before the time regulations were introduced by the Ceylon Tourist Board or any other bodies, and most hoteliers still pumped their extra sewer into the sea. “We were the first company at that time to invest in that,” he said.
“Even in the late 1990s, we started growing trees. We had a scheme called Jetwing Eternal Earth Program (JEEP), where a lot of our guests contributed about five to ten dollars each, and we planted over 3,500 trees in Hunnasgiriya. Even in 2011, when tourism started expanding and solar PV was quite expensive, we paid a lot of money to have our first solar parks and solar instalments. Now when you have a head of state who is focused on this sector, it’s much easier for us.”
Cooray also expressed optimism in advancing and reaching Sri Lanka’s goals on sustainability and climate-friendly tourism under the new President’s leadership, emphasising the ‘Clean Sri Lanka Project’ that was launched on 1 January this year as a transformative vision for the country.
