Claiming that some 30 to 40 Winter Charter flights have to be cancelled within a week due to the delay in expansion of the passenger terminal at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), Deputy Minister of Tourism Ruwan Ranasinghe said today if those flights could have been accommodated, Sri Lanka could have reached the target of 3 million tourist arrivals this year.
The Minister told Parliament that Sri Lanka recorded two million tourist arrivals yesterday, whereas two million tourist arrivals were recorded in December 26 last year.
He said some 280,000 tourists are expected to arrive within the coming days by December due to the winter season.
The Minister said Sri Lanka will fall behind the target of three million tourist arrivals this year because of the failure in expansion of the airports and not because of the shortcomings in the tourism promotion or any other issue.
“Sri Lanka has only two entry gates – the airport and port. The previous government failed to expand the passenger terminal at the BIA. The government will start expansion of Terminal 2 at the BIA by early next year,” he said. (Daily Mirror)
