Sri Lanka will finally open its airport for tourism from December 29 to accommodate around 5,000 Russian region based tourists, former Sri Lankan Ambassador to Russia, Udayanga Weeratunga said.

He said this would be under a trend setting pilot project which is very well planned and coordinated by Weeratunga himself and has also received the Cabinet approval and health authorities’ ‘green light.’

Weeratunga said that he wanted to execute this project two months ago but due to the second C-19 wave in Sri Lanka this project was on hold. With the re planned execution of this project the local travel industry which is at a standstill will receive a major boost of around USD 10 million and will also revive the supporting industries.

Explaining the modus operandi, he said that initially 5,000 tourists from Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine who undergo a 72 hour prior PCR test report will visit Sri Lanka on special flights operated by leading Russian and Ukraine airlines such as Aeroflot, Ukraine Air and SkyUp. They will operate three to Bandaranaike International Airport and six to Mattala Rajapaksa International airports per week. They will be issued one month visas for USD 35 each.

“I have contacted several beach hotels (around 2,600 rooms in total) and created four travel beach front corridors in Bentota, Taj Exotica Hotels (Bentota Beach, The Surf and, Avani), in Beruwala, (Eden, The Palms, and Cinnamon Bay), in Kalutara (Avani and Anantata) and in Koggala (three hotels) and the tourists will travel directly to these hotels on busses where a compulsory pre-check in PCR test awaits them.

One of the unique features of this concept is a special dedicated small hotel in each corridor has been allocated for medical staff to quarantine and treat C-19 patients if they come across any. These four hotels and medical staff have to be funded and looked after by the dedicated cluster hotels in each corridor.

In a bid to offer some excursions, guests would be offered visits to Elephant Orphanage, Galle Fort, Spice Gardens, Turtle Hatchery, and to Laksala under strict health guidelines and other precautionary measures ensuring that the tourists do not mix with Sri Lankans. “This was initiated on a request made by Basil Rajapaksa who wanted some of the non hotel sectors to reap some economic benefit from this project. He said that this initiative will bring around USD 10 million revenue to Sri Lanka and hotels too would be offering an all inclusive package no less than USD 100 per day. This concept has received a very positive response from Russia and each tourist will spend around USD 1,500 for the package.

Asked why Hikkaduwa was not considered he said that it was because they could not find a long ‘free’ stretch and as for Negombo it was ruled out since many hotels have given their properties for quarantine.

Source: Dailynews