Postpone vacations to Sri Lanka the tourism authorities

Sri Lankan tourism authorities ask foreign tourists to stay away for the next few weeks, as the tsunami hit island grapples with evacuation needs in-house and from the Maldives.

Sri Lankan tourism authorities ask foreign tourists to stay away for the next few weeks, as the tsunami hit island grapples with evacuation needs in-house and from the Maldives. “We are asking tourists to postpone their holiday visits to Sri Lanka by at least three to four weeks,” says Vasee Nesiah from the Sri Lanka Tourist Board’s official public relations agency, Bateys.

“The hotels were already full for the season and now with the evacuees there is a shortage of rooms.

So we are trying to delay more traffic from coming in,” he says.

The pressure for safe accommodation will increase further when survivors from the Maldives are evacuated via Colombo.

Flights are still not operating into the Maldives but the local tourism authorities are trying to make space for survivors when they are eventually flown in.

Sri Lanka alone was anticipating between 60,000 – 70,000 tourist arrivals in December and now the Tourist Board is working with the local tour operators and hoteliers to