Terror, Recession Put Tourism in the Doldrums
[IPS]
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council’s estimates for 2008, travel and tourism together were expected to contribute 2.9 billion dollars to the economy and account for one in every 15 jobs (or 567,000 jobs). This is considered vital at a time when the country is diverting a major chunk of its resources to the civil war in the north. “The global financial crisis is taking a toll on the balance of payments of Sri Lanka,” economist Muttukrishna Sarvananthan at the E. Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University told IPS.