Ajit Gunawardene, chief executive of John Keells, said Sri Lanka’s existing tourist infrastructure could handle a maximum of 800,000 visitors a year, comfortably meeting expected demand this year of 500,000.
But in the next one or two years, visitors arrivals are expected to double and then double again two years later to 2m, suggesting that unless the country embarks on a hotel construction boom it will fail to meet demand.
Mr Gunawardene said that “This gives you an indication of the type of momentum we want to maintain.”
Investors in Sri Lanka are betting that the island’s violent past is behind it following the defeat of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam last May in its battle for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east.
Hopes of political stability have been fuelled by landslide victories in the presidential and parliamentary elections this year by the incumbent leader, Mahinda Rajapaksa, and his ruling coalition, the United People’s Freedom Alliance.
