News
New tourist bookings, few cancellations for high season
View(s):By Wasantha Ramanayake
Sri Lanka is ready to welcome tourists from Europe this winter, despite Cyclone Ditwah, one of the worst natural disasters in the country’s history. There were no deaths of tourists among the more than 600 lives lost. According to the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, nearly 269 affected tourists were rescued.
Sri Lanka Tourism reaffirmed its commitment to ensure the safety of foreign visitors while promoting the country as a welcoming destination, building resilience, a media release of the Tourism Ministry said.
Highlighting the arrival of luxury cruise ship Mein Schiff 06 at the Colombo Port on Thursday with about 2,400 international passengers on board, Sri Lanka tourism hailed it as a symbol of revival and resilience.
However, an international tour operator largely catering to Australian tourists had to cancel around 20% of tours to Sri Lanka in December due to the adverse weather and damage to the infrastructure, a spokesperson said.
Commenting on Australia’s travel advisory, he said it could hurt the thriving Australian market. He also pointed out the need to address the particular concerns in the travel advisory to minimise cancellations in the first three months of 2026. “Although our company would not cancel any of the confirmed tours in 2026, less than 10% of the clients who had confirmed bookings have already cancelled their bookings,” he said.
Australia climbed up to sixth after Germany among the top 10 tourist source markets.
Another large-scale destination management company, too, said that some of its confirmed tours for next year had been cancelled.
Cyclone Ditwah caused considerable damage to tourism infrastructure and rendered important hill country destinations such as Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Ella inaccessible. Hotels in Kandy experienced running water shortages and power outages, said a national tour guide lecturer whose group of tourists had to stay in Kandy an extra night amid power outages, as the roads were blocked by landslides. The group had to change its itinerary and travel to Galle via Colombo, spending more than 10 hours in a bus.
Nuwara Eliya and Kandy were cut off for four days from November 26.
According to the tour guide lecturer who accompanied a stranded group, Kandy remained totally cut off from November 27 to 30 as landslides blocked all access roads. “For some reason, even landline phones were dead; we were totally isolated for four days,” he said.
According to him, desperate tourists wanted to call their families. “But the good-natured locals were ready to offer whatever they had to the stranded tourists and kept up the tourists’ spirits. He praised some of the locals.
The owner of the “Noshers Coffee Shop” outside the Nuwara Eliya town provided much-needed internet connections free through Starlink while also offering free coffee. “All these are totally new experiences for my clients,” said the tour guide lecturer. “They too showed their solidarity with the people by helping the municipal workers to clean the city.’’
Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairperson Buddhika Hewawasam was optimistic that the country would bounce back stronger after the cyclone and emphasised that the country is safe and ready for visitors.
Sri Lanka started social media campaigns from Friday, providing daily information about tourist sites on its webpage, said Mr Hewawasam. Beginning this week, meetings will be organised in Sri Lankan missions abroad where travel companies will be invited to join online with SLTDA officials and local travel agents, creating a platform to inform about the situation in Sri Lanka.
Mr Hewawasam said that around 5% of the tours could have been cancelled. But there are new bookings.
According to him, all the national parks and tourist sites are open, and important tourist destinations in the hills, such as Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Ella, are accessible by road. “Nuwara Eliya is accessible via Ginigathhena and Hatton except for large coaches,” he said. Almost all star-class hotels in Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, and Ella are operating. But the railway would not be able to operate in the hills for the next six months.
The Colombo University’s sustainable tourism unit head, Professor Suranga Silva, cautioned of a greater possibility of more extreme weather events due to climate change and emphasised the dire need to adapt and build up resilience.
He said that not only communities but also schoolchildren should be trained to face natural disasters in general.
“Neither did we know how to respond to the tsunami, nor were we prepared to face a cyclone of this nature, nor an earthquake if any in the future. It is high time we started to train our citizens to face natural disasters,” Prof. Silva said, adding that upgrading the equipment, such as helicopters and boats, could be a priority.
He said Sri Lanka is not so unfortunate in terms of tourism, as the southern region was largely spared by the adverse weather. New activities and products such as the “Ruhuna Ring” can be introduced so that when a part of the island is affected by any kind of natural disaster, visitors could be attracted to the other parts of the country.
“A tourism product offered to a foreign visitor could be transferable to another locality in case of any adverse climate condition. If the visitor could not go to Kandy due to landslides, he or she could be offered a similar cultural experience, maybe in Kataragama,” he suggested.
“The best way to help Sri Lanka to recover is to visit it,” said Prof. Silva, inviting visitors as an act of solidarity and economic support.
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