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Outlining his plans for the organisation going forward, Samarasinghe said the main challenge would be human resources and focusing on training and development: “As tourist arrivals increase and the industry grows rapidly, we will face a major challenge – that of human resources. Over the next year, I will focus on training and development of hotel staff and educating all stakeholders of the importance of talented and trained ambassadors of not just their own individual brands, but of Sri Lanka. With the support of the Committee and all the members of the PATA Sri Lanka Chapter, we will aim to increase standards through education and knowledge sharing initiatives with small hospitality providers.”
He then said that PATA would continue the various programs conducted in the previous year to educate various stakeholders. “We have already started some programs to raise awareness. We will continue to educate workers such as taxi drivers, vendors and beach boys on how to interact with tourists. We also need to focus on environmental conservation and sustainability so that small hotels can make it.” Samarasinghe also thanked outgoing Chairman Shamali De Vaz and praised her efforts.
PATA CEO Martin Craig also agreed on the importance of human capital development which PATA has been actively taking part in developing
through various international training programs that are being conducted for ‘upcoming stars’ from various countries. He invited PATA Sri Lanka to nominate two individuals with the highest potential to benefit from this lucrative opportunity. “This industry also needs to be able to attract the best and brightest talent available and therefore we need to make it shiny and alluring,” he added.
With Sri Lanka set to exceed industry expectations in terms of tourist arrivals for this year, according to Craig, who pointed it out to the industry leaders in attendance, the focus should be on destination marketing and attracting tourists with high-spending capacity saying. “Your aspiration should not be to have the largest volume of tourists, but to get higher paying tourists staying longer periods of time,” he asserted.
The rapid growth of tourism is creating more opportunities for employment in both hotels as well as aviation. Craig called for a joint partnership between airlines and tourism. “Airline companies should also recognise that if they do not have the joint partnership of the tourism business, they would not be able to build up demand.”
Outlining the extremely challenging environment in which airlines operate in Sri Lanka, he said: “It’s a really difficult business in which to make a profit, no matter where you are based. There are many handicaps here; if you have to pay 7 to 8% more for fuel and, fuel is 50% of your operating cost and, you also have to pay 5-6% of your capital to acquire your aircrafts in comparison to your big competitors who get very low interest rates, this can hugely change the dynamics of the bottom line.”
According to projections created by Boeing, there is an estimate of 198,000 new pilots that need to be trained by 2030 to meet the increasing demands in international travel.
Affiliated to the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, PATA Sri Lanka provides a forum for their members who comprise of travel agents, tour operators, hoteliers, and transport providers amongst others, and over 70 in number to showcase travel-related services and promote the country as a PATA destination. The Sri Lankan Chapter seeks to bring together these members at regular intervals to formulate and develop standards, practices and policies which are in-line with PATA objectives and projects.
Pix by Upul Abayasekara
