Hon. Minister of Tourism, Prasanna Ranatunga has instructed officials to take legal action against tourist guides who misuse their tourist guide identity cards.

The Minister was speaking at the inauguration of a program launched by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority for preparing the tourist guides with the aim of streamlining the tourism industry.

An online career development course was introduced to enhance the knowledge and skills of all tourist guides registered with the Tourism Development Authority of Sri Lanka.

Speaking further, Hon. Minister Prasanna Ranatunga said,

—With the Covid pandemic situation, we have to look at the tourism industry anew. As a result, every country is experimenting new methods in the field of tourism.  We have to continue the tourism industry without stopping it due to Covid pandemic.  For that purpose, a quality tourism system needs to be developed for tourists—.

—The country's reputation will be damaged if tourists do not receive a satisfied service with the amount of money they spend.  This program, which is being introduced under the program of regulating tourist guides, is a timely requirement.  Under this a new colored identity card will be issued to the tourist guide.  One of the objectives of this is to ensure the safety of tourists visiting the country.  At present, 1580 National Tourist Guide Lecturers have been registered at the national level under the Tourist Guide Registration Program.  They are given green identity cards.  1336 tourist guides who have been registered as chauffeur tourist guides are given yellow identity cards.747 tourist guides have been registered as Regional Tourist Guide Lecturers.  They are given brown identity cards.  93 tourist guides have been registered as Site Tourist Guide Lecturers and they are given red identity cards. The QR code on those ID cards will enable the tourist to know all the information about the tourist guide.  This will enable the foreign tourists to know the good or bad of the tourist guide who is with them. ˜

—When our government came to power, the tourism service providers were not properly registered.  Although there were about 22,000 tourism service providers, only about 2,000 were registered.  Despite the setback in the registration process due to the Covid pandemic, it should be expedited.  With the simplification of the registration process, the registration of these institutions has increased by about 30%."

"With the success of the vaccination program, we hope to start the tourism industry with a new approach.  The vaccination program for those engaged in tourism is currently being carried out successfully.  With the assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, necessary steps will be taken to lift the travel suspensions of countries that have imposed travel restrictions on our country.  Our aim is to bring the tourism industry to a better place as soon as possibleA.

The Progress Report of the Standards and Quality Assurance Division of the Tourism Development Authority for the year 2020 was also launched at this event and a series of videos were introduced to promote the registration of tourism service providers with the Tourism Development Authority.

The Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism, Mr.S.  Hettiarachchi, Chairperson of the Tourism Development Authority, Mrs. Kimali Fernando and Director General of the Tourism Development Authority, Mrs. Dhammika Wijesinghe were also present.