President Anura Kumara Dissanayake chaired a meeting at the Presidential Office on Wednesday afternoon to review progress on tourism projects and to discuss the Tourism Ministry’s budget proposals for 2027.
Hiru News reported that the session gave particular attention to a heritage tourism project centred on Jaffna, Mannar and Batticaloa, developed around Dutch colonial-era sites. The President underlined the importance of carrying the work forward while protecting the historical heritage itself.
Also discussed at length:
- Promoting marine tourism and cruise tourism
- Progress on ‘Southern Mist’, an eco-tourism project centred on the South and Sabaragamuwa
- Taking spiritual tourism — built around Anuradhapura, Mihintale and Kandy — to international markets
The President further turned to expanding domestic air services to lift tourism in the Northern and Eastern provinces, strengthening the tourist police service, introducing degree courses for the sector, and widening entrepreneurship training.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism Vijitha Herath and Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning Dr Anil Jayantha Fernando attended, with officials.
Two meetings, not one
Earlier the same day the President held a separate tourism meeting, and the two should not be read as competing accounts of a single event.
The Daily Mirror reported that on Wednesday morning, at the Presidential Secretariat, the President met tourism industry representatives and members of a tourism promotion task force, alongside Dr Anil Jayantha Fernando and Secretary to the President Dr Nandika Sanath Kumanayake.
That session covered the contribution national parks and natural attractions could make to the industry while protecting forest resources through legal safeguards, expanding international airline connections, improving domestic air travel to Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Sigiriya and Jaffna, and reviewing international promotional campaigns. The Daily Mirror set it against the government’s targets of five million tourists and US$10 billion in tourism revenue by 2030.
The two filings differ in time, venue, participants and agenda. Dr Anil Jayantha Fernando is the only named figure at both, and expanding domestic air links to the north and east is the one agenda item they share.
Not reported
Neither filing gives a figure for the Tourism Ministry’s 2027 budget request, a cost or completion date for any project named, or current visitor and earnings numbers against the 2030 targets. Hiru does not say which Dutch-era sites the northern project covers.
