President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in his election manifesto stated that he expects the tourism industry to contribute $ 10 billion to the national economy by 2025. Under this initiative it is expected to draw around 06 million tourists to the country. There has been a gradual increase in tourist numbers during the post war period and Minister Ranatunge believes that this is due to the positive promotions carried out globally.

However, he noted that during the past several years the tourism industry had seen a decline in tourist numbers and the expected tourists in 2016 was 2.5 million. However, tourist arrivals was limited to 2 million only. Thereafter, due to the Easter Sunday terror attacks the tourist arrivals reduced to 1.9 million.

Therefore, the five year plan to attract more tourists would be implemented towards the middle of this year and the 2022 has been planned to be named as the ‘Narambamu Sri Lanka’ (tour Sri Lanka) year to encourage tourists to visit Sri Lanka and experience its attractions.
Accordingly, the government intends to appoint destination agents for countries such as UK, Germany, France, India, China, Australia, Russia and the Gulf region. For countries such as the US, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, Japan, Korea, Poland and Netherlands public relations companies would be appointed.

In addition it is also planned to organise activities based on events which are unique to Sri Lanka, Minister Ranatunge said.

nn