In April, she flew from India to Sri Lanka. She arrived at a time when people clean their homes, carry out rituals, and set off fireworks to celebrate the new year. In April of this year, Sri Lankans took to the streets to protest against rising prices, food and gas shortages, and a life they could no longer afford.
Against the backdrop of growing discontent in the country, she considered her travel options. A friend who had recently returned from the country, a few local travel agents, and the Sri Lankan embassy were all spoken to by the blogger. She said that they all assured her that things were fine.
She made a decision to go forward with her trip.
The airport had so many foreigners that it seemed normal, according to Sarkar.
While the media kept showing all the protests, I only saw a few people in the city.
She spent the next 10 days traveling around the country, taking trains across the country, catching sunsets in the beach town of Mirissa, and photographing her way through mangrove wetlands and sacred temples.
Even as the country is in the midst of its worst economic crisis on record, tourists continue to flock to Sri Lanka. While photos from the capital show the burned-out shells of cars and buses toppled over into lakes, international visitors continue to fly in, hoping to take advantage of a cheap tourism market still in post-pandemic recovery mode.
In April, the Sri Lankan rupee hit a record low, food, medicine, and gas are in short supply, and the country is seeing rolling blackouts. On May 10, the government ordered troops to shoot anyone they saw destroy property.
The tourists keep coming.
In recent years, the relationship with tourism has been turbulent.
There are 22 million people in the island nation off the southeastern tip of India. With its white-sand beaches, temple ruins, and tea plantations, it draws in tourists searching for adventure, spirituality, and off-the-beaten path itineraries.
According to the World Bank, 2.5 million internationals arrived in the country last year, the culmination of a decade-long upward trend. Travel and tourism accounted for 12% of the country&s GDP in 2019.
More than 250 people were killed by suicide bombers on Easter Sunday. International arrivals to the country dropped by as much as 70% after the attacks. The World Bank says that arrivals fell to 2 million in 2019.
The first tuk-tuk driver in Sri Lankan history is now a tour operator and has had a front seat to the country's many tourism swings.
He told Insider that tourism was his only income when he first started. We had a good life.
Kumara said that after the terror attack, tourism was torn down again, but people wanted to visit.
The dependence of the country on tourism is still on display in the current crisis.
There is a police presence sometimes. The police were very friendly, even happy to have a photo taken, when we were stopped.
As many countries across the globe reopen their borders and reap the financial benefits of welcoming back tourists, Sri Lanka is facing a new crisis. With its foreign reserves at a record low, the country is on the verge of bankruptcy and the economic crisis has become a political crisis. The country has had a state of emergency twice in April. Sri Lanka is facing a food crisis with imports down and domestically grown food on a decline due to the ban on fertilizer.
People are taking to the streets to protest. The death toll from the protests rose to five and the Prime Minister resigned on May 9. On May 14th, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the newly elected prime minister, said he would ensure families get three meals a day, but that the crisis would get worse before it got better. The country was down to its last day of gasoline three days later.
Gary Bowerman, a travel analyst who runs a weekly show called the South East Asia Travel Show, said that this has been building for years. For the last three or four years, Sri Lanka has not had any foreign exchange reserves. The year before COVID there were the bombings, which really hit tourism hard, and tourism is such a vital source of foreign exchange in Sri Lanka.
The root of the problem is government mismanagement.
You wouldn't see the severity of the situation if you looked at the Facebook groups where travelers swap tips.
Sri Lanka Travel and Tourism has 47,000 followers. The page keeps getting comments from people trying to figure out whether or not they should visit Sri Lanka, looking for rides out of the airport, and getting gas in the country.
I am thinking of buying tickets this week for June. There is no electricity in the country and there is a curfew. A woman from Turkey wrote about the resignation of the prime minister on May 10.
A French member of the group asked if it was possible to go to one city to another due to the petrol shortage.
The comments on the questions are full of travelers chiming in with their own advice, name-dropping gas stations and convenience stores where they were able to refuel. People are encouraged to keep visiting by tourists and locals.
I was just there and didn't notice. One woman wrote on May 11 that she had an amazing three weeks and that she was in a holiday bubble.
The story of traveling and living in Sri Lanka right now is like a series of disconnected stories. Some locals say they don't see the same version of life portrayed by the media as visitors do.
The travel analyst said that geography could be to blame for the discrepancy. Tourists tend to head out of Colombo and not spend a lot of time there.
If you head down to one of the resorts in the south of the country, you may not notice the shortages and power cuts.
An American who lives in Singapore and works in education tech booked a flight to Sri Lanka in January. She said she experienced fuel and food shortages when she was there.
There were things on the menu that they couldn't provide because they couldn't get the food imported.
Things have gotten worse since then.
The only change that she had to make was to take the shortest route to save fuel.
The Brit who described the police presence researched the trip before going through with it. Todd and her partner arrived in Sri Lanka on May 10 and found protests, burning hotels, and loot, as well as being stopped four times by protesters as they traveled to their first hotel.
They rented a tuk-tuk for the entire trip. Gas lines can be long, but locals still help them out. In the central town of Dambulla, the owner of a closed garage gave them fuel out of his own car, and elsewhere, they bought five liters off a local man who had some gas to spare.
Todd said that a garage that was closed had a small amount so they let them fill up. The owner closed up again and told everyone to stop using fuel.
Since the beginning of April, the US Embassy has been publishing demonstrations on its website. The advisory was issued due to fuel and medicine shortages. The UK, Ireland, and New Zealand advise against non-essential travel to Sri Lanka.
There is an element of truth in there, but there are also a number of dangers.
From a tourism standpoint, there are a lot of issues you need to think about, and this is definitely going to get worse.
Travelers are changing their plans. A woman from Greece in the Sri Lanka Facebook group told Insider she was leaning towards canceling the flight she had booked for the end of May, and some Facebook commenters were suggesting travelers cancel or delay their trips.
The state of crisis that has bled into their own lives is not stopping them from welcoming tourists.
It is practical for some.
Kumara, the tuk-tuk driver, said that having tourists in his car is one of the only ways he has a chance at getting gas. They don't give me a chance if I go alone.
Others think tourism is the way out of the economic crisis.
In some cases, despite waiting in line for a long time, there were times when I finally had to.
Currently we are facing lack of foreign reserves, and tourism will help us to raise them again, and that's why I'm really happy to see tourists in Sri Lanka right now.
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