Minister of Tourism Prasanna Ranatunga, Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Kimali Fernando and their entourage have spent Rs. 120,542,316.39 for five tourism travel fairs held in four countries this year.
The Tourism Minister had attended three out of the five travel fairs.
Despite visiting countries such as France and Russia, the minister had not even met his foreign counterparts, according to internal sources of the Tourism Ministry.
According to data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, 104,989 tourists have visited Sri Lanka from January – November this year.However, in 2020, 507,311 tourists had arrived in the country despite less than 100,000 (99,941) had arrived from March – November that year.According to sources from the Ministry of Tourism, 40% of last year’s tourists visiting the country were Indian nationals.
Most of them had come for quarantine purposes and thus no progress has been made compared to the staggering amount spent on tourism promotion for the last year.
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