Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is already taking a hit after the government was plunged into crisis last week with Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena attempting to sack the prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replace him with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The outbreak of the crisis, coinciding with the run up to Sri Lanka’s peak winter tourist season, saw an almost immediate onslaught of travel advisories from foreign governments, especially from Europe and North America, warning of potential violence.
Tourists have been cancelling hotel bookings, AFP reports, saying that although no official figures have been given, deluxe hotels have been hit by cancellations and a critical decline in new bookings in the past 10 days.
A Colombo city hotel executive told the news agency that they had had a lot of cancellations from the US.
"With the political crisis our winter season is gone," the director of another luxury beach resort in the south of the island lamented.
We need your support
Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.
Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view
We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.
For more ways to donate visit https://donate.tamilguardian.com.
