Last week, Minister Milinda Moragoda was appointed to a new portfolio as the Minister for Justice and Law reforms by the Head of State, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Moragoda has taken over the new ministry portfolio succeeding the Late Minister Amarasiri Dodangoda. Previously, Minister Moragoda held the portfolio as the Minister of Tourism.


The following are some of the achievements and performances that laid the foundation for Milinda Moragoda as the Minister of Tourism during his tenure at the Ministry of tourism. In his Ministry, he initiated the Promulgation of the Tourism Act 38 of 2005, while he also successfully re-structured the Ministry of Tourist Board to Ministry and four different divisions (SLTDA, SLTPB, SLITHM, and SLCB) within a short period of time.


He had established the Tourism Advisory Committee, Sanga Advisory Council to advise on policy matters, implementation of the Commissioner for Tourism Administration and Tourist Police Division. He also established collection and dissemination of the Tourism Development Fund and implemented US $30 million TRIP. He also organised two successful Presidential Tourism Awards ceremonies.


As the minister he actively intervened to strengthen bi-lateral ties with countries like Iran, India, Middle East and China, and also facilitated the EIB loan scheme introduced for the Tsunami affected entrepreneurs in the Tourism sector, and expanded and continued during 2008. He distributed 16,000 copies of “Buddhism, Culture & Sri Lanka Pilgrims guide” to hotels.


For Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) the minister established the Kalpitiya integrated Tourism Resort Development Project, commencement of the Deduwa project to create a resort on 1200 acres of land, establishment of the Ramayana Trail which is already bringing in large numbers of Indian tourists, anti rabies campaign through vaccination and sterilisation of dogs, completed in the Bentota resort area. Interior work of the China Bay airport in Trincomalee was also carried out with the assistance of National Design Centre. The minister took steps to upkeep 50% of the 15,000 hotel rooms that are currently below required minimum standards of SLTDA. All rooms were to be refurbished over two years to accommodate the increase in tourist arrivals. SLTDA also identified 4,000 acres for the massive Kalpitiya tourism development and prepared a 10 year Tourism Master Plan for Sri Lanka (2011-2020).


With regard to the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLT-PB), some of the many development steps in which the minister got involved were the re-branding campaign initiative - a new brand strategy and positioning - “Small Miracle” to drive in the point of differentiation in the consumers’ minds and thereby to effectively position the destination. The Minister also participated in key trade fairs in UK, Germany, Singapore, France, Russia (2), Middle East, India, China (2), Japan and Italy. The Ministry also sponsored key events like the Galle Literary Festival, Colombo, Marathon and the Colombo Vogue Lifestyles. He also appointed destination representative companies in India, Middle East, Germany, France and Russia.


With relevance to the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism Training and Hotel Management (SLITHM) the minister carefully explored the issue of a declining trend in student intake, since 2004, and provided solutions by increasing the intake to provincial colleges, in the years 2007/2008. The Southern province alone recorded a 600% increase in the first intake for 2009.


For Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB), Minister Moragoda increased the MICE tourism percentage (Meetings, incentives, Conferencing, and Exhibitions) of total tourism to Sri Lanka to 12% while attracting over 35 Regional and international events each year, for 2007 and 2008. He also arranged the attendance for a number of influential trade fairs worldwide, in order to raise the profile of Sri Lanka as a MICE tourism destination.


Some of the other future plans that the minister had in 2009 were to introduce a programme to identify lesser known attractions and to develop basic facilities and to facilitate domestic tourism through awareness of tourist attractions now opened especially in the north and east of country.