Tourism sector must draw lessons from other sectors

Thursday, 6 February 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Commercial Bank Chairman Dinesh Weerakkody speaking at the Institute of Hospitality International Conference titled “Balancing for the

future success of tourism in Sri Lanka” said the country would need to increase the 3 to 5 star capacity from the present 17,000 rooms to reach 45,000 rooms by 2016 in order to cater for 2.5 million tourists and thereby achieve the 2016 $ 3 billion earnings target and sustain those earnings thereafter. This means we need to increase the capacity by an additional 30,000 rooms. The cost of building a room according to sector experts is roughly $ 150.000-200,000. Therefore, the investment required to build 30,000 additional rooms would be around $ 5-6 billion. The number of skilled staff would also need to increase from the present 40,000 to reach 126,000 by 2016 to meet the growth targets set for the industry. That means an additional 86,000 have to be trained, the training cost per skilled worker per year, is around $ 800. Therefore, to train an additional 86,000, it will cost the industry around $ 70 million, he said. Further investment would also have to be made to expand the capacity of existing hotel schools. The industry therefore needs to develop a new employment value proposition to attract young people to join the industry, like what the garment industry did in the 1990s and also to attract education providers through private public partnerships to invest in the required training infrastructure to deliver the skilled manpower the industry needs by 2016 and beyond. Overall, he observed it was a good time for the industry with the prioritisation of travel and tourism and also because the regional prospects for tourism are strongest for Asia and the Pacific region.