COLOMBO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's leading tourism officials on Monday said that Sri Lanka Tourism would soon launch a massive global tourism promotion campaign to attract tourists back to the island country, following the terror explosions on April 21.
Industry officials said despite the fact that the industry faced a large number of cancellations following the Easter attacks, they were confident to revive back within 2 to 13 months through rigorous promotional campaigns.
Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority Kishu Gomes told a media briefing here that countries who had suffered global terrorist attacks had managed to revive their tourism industries within a year and Sri Lanka had begun studying their forms of revival.
"Currently we are studying the strategy they used to revive their tourism industries and through this, and with a strategy of our own, we are confident to launch Sri Lanka as a safe destination soon. Right now the industry is working hard to ensure the security of all travelers," Gomes said.
Many hotels in Sri Lanka are currently facing less than 10 percent occupancy following the Easter attacks which killed over 250 people and injured over 500.
Forty-two foreigners were among those killed in the explosions which targeted churches and luxury hotels.
Gomes said that following the attacks, an average of 1,700 tourists still visited Sri Lanka per day and industry experts were currently looking at implementing long term security measures in hotels and tourist sites to ensure the safety of all tourists who visit the country.
Gomes further said that 37 countries had issued travel advisories against Sri Lanka and soon, a team of tourism experts would visit all their diplomatic missions in the country and provide them the facts of the present situation.
Over 2 million people in the island country depend on the tourism industry through direct and indirect jobs.
