Colombo, March 8 (newsin.asia) – The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, on Thursday said the present state of emergency declared in the country had no impact on tourism and assured that all tourists in the country were safe.
An official from the SLTDA told newsin.asia that tourist arrivals continued without hindrance in to the country and except for the minor inconvenience of not being able to travel freely in some parts of Kandy district at the present time, there was no other issue concerning tourism.
“It’s a necessity at the present juncture in order to maintain law and order which is in the greater interest of tourism and it will be lifted in a week. Therefore we do not see any major impact from this,” the official said.
“We want to assure that all tourists in the country are safe and there is absolutely no threat of harm to any of them,” he added.
A statement from the SLTDA said the members of the tourism and travel industries worked with local police authorities on Wednesday to facilitate issuance of passes for tourists who chose to move out of the Kandy administrative district due to the curfew.
The SLTDA said the situation in Kandy however had no impact whatsoever on other parts of the country and day to day affairs and activities took place smoothly outside the Kandy district.
Further it said that since the curfew had been lifted by the police, tourists could resume their travel plans to Kandy.
“The situation in Kandy is improving and the area is fast returning to normalcy. No violent incident has been reported from the district in the last 18 hours,” the SLTDA said.