(TAN): Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) has created provisional licensing to assist SMEs enabling them to seek COVID-19 health certification to host tourists in the future, a government statement said.
Sri Lanka Tourism is extending its support to the Small and Medium sector, which comprises 60% of the country’s tourism industry. It is estimated that over 50,000 SME entities are involved in the tourism industry and contribute to the economy by providing employment and foreign exchange to the country.
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Their main booking method being online travel agents such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda, etc, most SMEs are unregistered. Due to many problems to get themselves registered, such as strenuous documentation requirements, most of these service providers were not able to receive any benefits from the relief packages announced by the government.
Considering this gap, SLTDA has created a provisional licensing method to assist the SMEs enabling them to seek COVID-19 health certification to host tourists in the future. It is also assisting this segment to be able to obtain a provisional license they would now need to submit an online application with limited documentation together with photos and a registration fee. The SLTDA is also developing a process to ease and relax some guidelines without compromising on quality.
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“Tourism is undoubtedly one of the most affected industries in the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and to help the industry, the Cabinet approved a series of relief measures to tourism service providers registered with Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Unfortunately, since 60% of the tourist service providers in Sri Lanka belongs to the informal sector who haven’t registered with SLTDA, many have not been able to avail the relief measures which is brought to authority’s notice,” Kimarli Fernando, chairperson Sri Lanka Tourism, said.
“After a series of consultations with the SME sector and to support them during this pandemic and in any future crisis, SLTDA encourages the SMEs in the tourism sector to register with us…. We have decided to relax our registration criteria. They can initially opt for a provisional license for six months and they could register with us fully later” Director General of SLTDA Dhammika Wijayasinghe said.
