Sri Lanka hoteliers see high influx of Russian tourists as Aeroflot returns
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s hoteliers are hopeful of increasing hotel bookings by Russian visitors as the Misco-based carrier Aeroflot returned to the island after 4-months following a legal spat.
“The numbers are not impressive at the moment. But, we expect it to grow in the coming weeks,” M. Shantikumar, the President of Sri Lanka’s Hotels Association told EconomyNext, when asked if the resumption of Aeroflot would help boost tourist arrivals.
Aeroflot recommenced its flight operations to Colombo from Moscow on Monday with 252 tourists and the flight will maintain a frequency of 2 flights a week between Moscow and Colombo this month.
From November 2022 to March 2023, the airline will operate three flights per week, the Airport and Aviation Service of Sri Lanka (AASL) said.
“We have learned that over 75% of seats have been reserved by now,” the AASL said in a statement.
Aeroflot launched flights to Sri Lanka at the height of the global pandemic in 2020 and boosted tourist numbers when the country was desperately looking for one after it opened its borders in late 2020.
However, in June 2022, the aircraft was grounded in Colombo following a legal action sought by Celestial Aviation Trading Limited of Ireland, the owner of the aircraft, against Aeroflot in a Colombo court, over a lease dispute.
This led to a diplomatic spat between the two countries threatening bilateral trade and flight services. However, Sri Lankan government apologised officially for the incident.
That led to a drop in Russian tourists to as low as 1500 on average from 15,000 per month at the start of the year amid an intensified war between Russia and Ukraine.
Russians accounted for the highest number of tourists before Aeroflot suspended its flights.
Sri Lanka saw its lowest tourist arrivals in September in 11 months. Officials say September is a slow month before it picks up for the winter season. But the country last week revised down its tourism target once again to 800,000 from one million for 2022 with 1.7 billion USD from 1.8 billion USD.
Total tourist arrivals for the year so far till the end of September is around 526,000 and generated only around 946.4 million US dollars in revenue.
(Colombo/Oct10/2022)
