Ayubowan. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.
On behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka, allow me to welcome you to this Sri Lanka Tourism Awareness Session organized under the auspices of Sri Lanka Tourism as part of its market outreach program focusing on India.
As you know, the event today is being organized against the backdrop of a country that is recovering and reinventing itself in the devastating aftermath of a cyclone. The serious impact caused to Sri Lanka by the wrath of Ditwah, the death and infrastructural damage left in its wake is significant and has been extensively reported around the world. But as Sri Lankans usually do in such situations, we have, yet again, shown our remarkable resilience. The tourism sector was one of the first to reopen. And the significant numbers in terms of arrivals attest to how successfully we have bounced back in a short span of time.
Sri Lanka Tourism, Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators, The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka and SriLankan Airlines have worked tirelessly not simply to promote tourism but to mitigate the consequences of the cyclone on the tourism sector overcoming incredible challenges. I want to specially recognize this fact, and also those representing these institutions here today: Mr. Buddhika Hewawasam, Chairman Sri Lanka Tourism, Mr. Nalin Jayasundera President Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators, Mr. Anura Lokuhetti, Past President of The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, Mr. Fawzan Fareid Regional Manager of SriLankan Airlines for India, Bangladesh and Nepal, and Mr. Sman Udayakumaran, Manager Western Region of SriLankan Airlines.
Along with them, I also want to thank and commend all of you for helping promote and tailor-make tourism to Sri Lanka from India not taking for granted that Indians are the largest national group among our tourist arrivals. Here, I want to recognize and thank the distinguished representatives from TAAI and TAFI for their presence with us today. I would like to recall what an Indian travel industry specialist said recently. He said that tourism is not merely an industry for Sri Lanka - it is a lifeline. It sustains communities, supports small businesses, empowers women and youth, and preserves the island’s rich cultural and natural heritage.
In this context, I believe welcoming foreign travellers to our island which is so deeply embedded in both culture and heritage, also needs to be understood more broadly, more reflectively and with a more nuanced cultural sensitivity, particularly when it happens to be tourism among neighbours as Sri Lanka and India are.
For me this is also important because if planned sensibly, travel and cultural knowledge have considerable potential for soft diplomacy in the future too.
When it comes to Mumbai in particular, and people travelling to Sri Lanka from Mumbai or Maharashtra, there are additional cultural nuances that we may no longer remember. Sri Lanka’s most iconic modernist painter George Keyt lived in Mumbai for years and had his first solo and international exhibition at the Convocation Hall of the University of Bombay in 1947.
Along with Mulk Raj Anand, the well-known Indian writer, among the founders of the Mumbai-based cultural magazine Marg, established in 1946 was Anil de Silva, a member of an important Sri Lankan family. Marg is still being published. India’s earliest and best-known press for scholarly works, Asia Publishing House was established in Mumbai in 1943 by a Sri Lankan businessman, P.S. Jayasinghe. And Radio Ceylon’s most sought-after programme Binaca Geetmala transmitted from Colombo for decades since the 1952 was given its irresistible personality by Ameen Sayani who was from Mumbai. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
I mention this information to make a simple point. Travel and tourism can be undertaken not merely for the sake of travel, seeing and capturing memories in digital photographs alone, but also with a historical, spatial and temporal consciousness. This will allow travellers to see more and gain more from tourism making their experience that much richer and fuller.
If tourism can be more broadly thought out, it will still be a viable business but will also allow travellers to realize the wisdom of what St. Augustine noted as long ago as the 4th century AD when he said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only one page.” Must we not encourage our citizens to go beyond a single page of a limited worldview and not only experience a whole book but even become that book itself?
Indeed, I think Sri Lanka has much to offer in terms of cuisine, textiles, contemporary art, film, architecture, literature and so on that would make any travel experience richer. All of these are matters to see, experience and learn from. Quite literally, what Sri Lanka has to offer would surpass the pleasures of reading any serious book, which is perhaps why ancient Greeks called it Serendib from which the English word serendipity has emerged. As we know, it refers to “something interesting or pleasant happening by chance.” We, of course, need not leave anything to chance. That is what reflective and well-planned tourism is all about.
There is much we can learn from history. After all, travellers from both the east and west have reported widely on what they have seen and experienced in lands like Sri Lanka and India from the distant past through the colonial times right up to the present. This brings to my mind the words of Marcel Proust when he observed, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” To have new eyes or to see well is also about speaking and becoming story-tellers, narrating what you have seen.
I believe we should aim to make every traveller a storyteller today too. I know, some of you here are journalists, travel promoters and social media influencers. But what if we make a storyteller out of each traveller, which is very doable given today’s advances in digital and telecommunication technology, which has made everyone with the interest a photojournalist and commentator on social media.
But for this discourse to become a serious tool for tourism, I think it is essential that the tourist experience – that is, what people see and engage with – must necessarily be broadened. This also means more business. It is in this context that I referred to contemporary art, literature, film and so on earlier.
We must remember, despite being a very small country, Sri Lanka has much to offer travellers in one go. This will range from the sandy golden beaches and the sapphire sea to the emerald mountains and cascading waterfalls; ancient citadels and new iconic architectural structures; temple frescoes from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries to contemporary art by globally award-winning artists. And the possibilities remain endless.
I also think, while we always learn from statistics and travellers’ accounts, we also stand to learn from academic texts on tourism and travel. When I say this, I have in mind publications like Mikko Toivanen’s 2025 book, Empire, Tourism, and Colonial Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, which discusses travel and the implications of the empire in tourism in 19th century Sri Lanka and Asia, and Malcolm Crick’s 1994 book, Resplendent Sites, Discordant Voices: Sri Lankans and International Tourism which talks about Sri Lanka's tourism expansion, its societal impacts and the very different views on tourism expressed by locals and tourists. Written based on long-term research, which also include critical perspectives from locals and travellers alike; official experiences, which may not be part of published records; and careful consideration of tourism and travel related policies over time, their insights are quite valuable, and can feed into tourism development.
I want to conclude on this note: Despite setbacks, 2025 was a good year for Sri Lanka Tourism, winning several international tourism endorsements, from the Lonely Planet, Vogue Magazine, the BBC Travel Guide and from the Travel & Tour World. These are significant global accolades in 2025 alone. And we have already made our way into several international endorsements for 2026 travel destinations including by Travel and Leisure, G Adventures and US News & World Report and Lonely Planet. Let’s hope that 2026 will be an even better year. And for this, we count on your continued support.
Thank you. Ayubowan.