UNDP to facilitate recovery of Sri Lankan tourism

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has come on board to facilitate the development of a roadmap towards ‘Building a Safer and Resilient Tourism Sector in Sri Lanka: Post COVID-19’, to better assess the rapidly evolving pandemic and its crippling impact on the tourism sector.  

This national roadmap is intended to catalyse the development of a framework to support the development of a new Strategic Plan and Vision for tourism 2021-2024. The first in a series of  consultations with development partners convened under the theme; ‘Putting People First: Building a more Resilient Tourism Sector in Sri Lanka’ was held on Monday in Colombo.

This national roadmap is being developed collaboratively by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA, UNDP other UN agencies including the International Labour Organization (ILO) and World Tourism Organization (WTO) and development partners such as World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Union (EU), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Australia and other key stakeholders. 

As Sri Lanka tourism seeks to springboard from recovery to become a more agile and resilient sector, the meeting will be co-chaired by SLTDA and UNDP, and will engage key decision-makers from key ministries and development partners to discuss the current situation as well as priority directions for sustainable and innovative interventions for longer term resilience of Sri Lankan tourism.

Tourism is a vital economic sector for Sri Lanka, accounting for 5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and directly employing 250,000 and indirectly up to 2 million persons. It is one of the worst impacted socio-economic sectors from the COVID-19 crisis.