After the bombings in April, tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka slumped 70% in May and 57% in June from a year earlier. Many small businesses are now forced to lay off staff or have them work for minimal pay by AditiShahsays ShiharAneez
UNWATUNA/GALLE, Sri Lanka - Pearl Divers, a diving school on one of Sri Lanka’s most popular southern beaches, shut shop for two months after suicide bombers attacked churches and hotels on the island on Easter Sunday, killing about 250 people. It had no customers as tourists cancelled holidays, and its manager Nuwan Harshana says he took two months leave and a pay cut.
The economy of Sri Lanka, a sun-drenched island in the Indian Ocean, depends heavily on the $4.4 billion tourism industry. Small businesses like Pearl Divers have been on the rise since the nation’s civil war ended in 2009 and tourists poured in. “Clearly it took banks a bit of time to gear up for it ... As they had to work out the decision making process,” central bank governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy said on Thursday.
The government expects a shortfall of $800-900 million in tourism revenue this year, which will widen its current account deficit to 3% of GDP from the 2.3% it had earlier expected, a top central bank official told Reuters.“The main concern is rising non-performing loans due to sluggish economic growth after the attacks,” the official said.
“I have to manage with my savings but I don’t have much. People like us, we rise slowly but the fall is sudden,” he said.The island received 2.5 million foreign tourists last year and with Lonely Planet magazine endorsing it as 2019’s top destination, the government was hoping to draw in more than 3 million this year.
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