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By APD Writer Jamila Husain
COLOMBO, June 28 (APD) - Sri Lanka's Tourism Minister, John Amaratunga on Wednesday said the present dengue outbreak had no adverse impact on the tourist arrivals to the island country.
Amaratunga said tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka had seen a decline this month but that was due to the devastating floods and cyclone which hit the country late last month and then the threat of the spread of diseases.
However he said things were now returning to normalcy in the disaster affected areas and the government was confident that tourist arrivals would pick up during the tourist season.
Schoolchildren hold up a handmade sign that reads: ‘Let’s Eradicate Dengue’
"The dengue epidemic itself did not adversely affect the tourism arrivals this month.The word went around that we were facing floods. But that has now subsided. Even dengue is now on the decline, so we are confident tourist arrivals will pick up and we will be able to achieve our targets," Amaratunga said.
"This month we have not been able to meet our expectations as there were a number of problems.This was mainly due to the floods, disease and a garbage problem. There were so many obstacles. But the industry is confident we will be able to pick up in the next two or three months," he added.
He added that Sri Lanka had received the highest number of tourist arrivals last year with over 2 million tourist arrivals and this year were expecting an additional 2.5 million tourists.
With new international hotels chains also entering the island country, there would be 45,000 rooms available in the country in the coming few years.
To cope with the demand to provide service personnel to work at these hotels, Amaratunga said the hotel school was training service personnel to cater to the growing demand.
At least 210 people have died in Sri Lanka and over 70,000 people infected with dengue, Health workers have said.
The Health Ministry on Wednesday launched a two week cleaning program to reduce the spread of dengue and clean up mosquito density spots.
The programme will be implemented under the directive of President Maithripala Sirisena and Health Minister Rajitha Senarathne.
It will be assisted by the Ministries of Provincial Councils and Local Government, and Defence.
According to the National Dengue Prevention Campaign, out of the nearly 70,000 infected with dengue, 25 percent of them are below the age of 19.
Sri Lanka's health workers, last week warned that the country was facing a dengue epidemic as there was a tremendous rise in the Type 2 virus and urgent preventive and curative measures were ongoing to prevent the numbers from rising further.
Hospitals had also been geared with the necessary facilities to treat the patients and hospitals were working on equipping additional beds to treat emergency patients.
Last year a total of 54,727 dengue patients and 78 deaths were reported throughout the island.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
