Sri Lanka’s Tourism industry is gearing up to employ 600,000 people in the hotel industry by 2016.

Tourism Development Authority Director General S. Kalaiselvam told Daily News Business that the country has 14,000 hotel rooms and 50 percent of the hotels have already started their upgrading process.

The Government has formulated several measures to facilitate the development of the hotel industry. Three new resorts will be constructed in Kalpitiya, Pasikudah and Kuchchaveli in the near future, which is expected to add 4,000, 1,000, 5,000 hotel rooms respectively.

Plans are under way to add an additional 3,000 hotel rooms by 2012 and out of these 2,000 rooms will be constructed in the North and Eastern provinces.

“The current occupancy rate of hotels in Sri Lanka is 60 percent.

“The grading process of hotels has already been started and 60 percent of the grading process has been completed up to now,” Kalaiselvam said.

The country has generated US$ 151 million from tourism related earnings during the first four months in 2010. The country received 198,709 tourists during the same period.

Lanka is targeting 50,000 to 60,000 tourist arrivals per month.

A large majority of tourists come from India and UK and it accounts for 40 percent of total tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka. Indian tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka have increased by 40 percent when compared with last year and most of them are coming to the country for shopping. Plans have also been drawn to attract more tourists from non-traditional tourist destinations such as China, Japan and Middle East.

Many countries have now lifted adverse travel advisory warnings to Sri Lanka considering the peaceful situation that prevails in the country.

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