Tourist arrivals in areas outside Colombo will also go down by about 30 per cent following the bombings, he said at a travel conference in Dubai.
SriLankan Airlines' chief executive Vipula Gunatilleka said at the conference that the carrier had a 10 per cent increase in cancellations last week and expects that number to go up.
Sri Lanka faces a likely collapse in tourism following Easter Sunday bomb attacks on churches and hotels, which would deal a severe blow to the island's economy and financial markets, and potentially force it to seek further IMF assistance.
Gomes said the tourism bureau was chasing a target of 2.5 million visitors in 2019.
We will probably reach about 2 million, Gomes said. We are looking at providing some concessions to the industry for them to be able to maintain their viability for the next few months.
Gomes said confidence could return if the military is able to give assurances on security.
If the military can come out over the next few days and make a strong statement with respect to security that's when we will obviously offer a bit of confidence and try and work against that anticipation.
The cancellations started before the dust had settled on the hotels and churches hit by suicide bombers in Sri Lanka as tourists and operators pressed the panic button.
Sanath Ukwatte, chairman of the colonial-era Mount Lavinia hotel in Colombo, said he lost about 30 per cent of his bookings within days of the Easter Sunday attacks that killed 253 people.
Many holidaymakers got the first plane out of Colombo after the blasts, at least 40 foreigners were among the dead raising fears for a tourism industry that had managed to move on from the shadows of a decades of a long civil war.
The United States, Britain, Australia, India and Israel have all warned their nationals against visiting, while the Netherlands is organising a special flight to evacuate hundreds of Dutch tourists.
On Friday, European travel giant TUI announced it had stopped taking bookings for the South Asian country.
The crisis could get worse before it gets better for the island nation, whose palm fringed beaches and mountain tea plantations were recently named the best place to visit in 2019 by the Lonely Planet guide.
Sri Lanka's Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera had hoped tourism would earn a record US$5.0 billion this year, up from US$4.4 billion in 2018. He thinks the attacks could now see the country lose up to one third of that.
Tourism accounts for about five percent of the economy, with Britain, India and China the main markets. Official figures show tourist arrivals in the first quarter of this year jumped 4.6 per cent to 740,600 from 2018.
But with armed guards now a fixture in some Colombo hotels and cancellations flooding in after the carnage unleashed by coordinated suicide attacks, Samaraweera must work out a rescue plan for establishments now facing ruin.
We expect a 30 per cent drop in arrivals and that means a loss of about US$1.5 billion in foreign exchange, he said on Friday.
Ruchir Desai, a senior investment analyst with Asia Frontier Capital in Hong Kong, said the next year will be a tough one for Sri Lanka.
Given the scale of the attack I still think you would see a negative impact on the industry, Desai said.
It should recover, he added, obviously it depends on the steps the government takes to improve stability.
Ukwatte, who is also president of the Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, hopes Sri Lanka can bounce back.
Sri Lanka's tourism is heading into its low season, and Ukwatte believes if confidence can be restored by October or November, then we will be able to revive the industry with European winter travellers.
Finance Minister Samaraweera highlighted how other countries hit by Islamic State inspired attacks rebuilt their image and convinced tourists to come back.
Typically, countries that suffer isolated IS style attacks see tourism recovering within one to two years, as long as root causes are addressed and security measures taken are well communicated, the minister said.
He pointed to tourist industries in Belgium, France, Spain and Tunisia as countries which had all managed to bounce back after suffering indiscriminate terror attacks.
Much will depend on how the government gets its message across, observers said.
Canadian adventure tourism promoter Wade Campbell criticised the government's communications after the attacks, particularly a top defence ministry official who has since resigned, who said Sri Lankan hotels should have arranged their own security to avoid being hit.
Danger is a perception thing, said Campbell, who is now looking at redirecting bookings to rival destinations like Nepal.
Italians Donatella Papi and her husband Maurizio Fantappie were on a 25-day holiday in eastern Sri Lanka when the bombers struck.
My husband wanted to leave after the bombings, he suggested going to Thailand. But I wasn't too scared then, I thought it would settle down, said Papi.
I think Sri Lanka tourism will fall we are very sad about it. This year is the anniversary of the end of the war it was supposed to be a celebration, she said.
We have no regrets about staying on but we are very sad and worried for our safety and for Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has assured hoteliers that the government will give them maximum financial relief to revive the lucrative tourism industry hit by the country’s worst terror attack on Easter Sunday that killed 253 people, including 40 foreigners.
Tourism accounts for about five per cent of Sri Lanka’s economy, with India, Britain and China being the main markets.
India is the largest source market for Sri Lanka, which received 2.3 million tourists from around the world in 2018.
Around 450,000 Indian tourists visited Sri Lanka last year and the island nation was expecting the total Indian tourist arrivals to cross one million in 2019.
President Sirisena acknowledged during his meeting on Monday with the country’s hoteliers that the tourism and hotel industries were worst hit after the string of powerful blasts ripped through three churches and as many luxury hotels on Easter Sunday, killing 253 people and injuring more than 500 others.
The bombs tore through three five-star hotels in Colombo: the Cinnamon Grand, the Shangri La and the Kingsbury. Forty foreigners, including 11 Indian nationals, died in the attacks.
Sirisena requested Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy to provide maximum financial relief immediately to the hoteliers.
Hotels Association President Sanath Ukwatte said hoteliers had invested large sums of money in the development of the hotels and requested the government to provide a moratorium or waiver on the capital and interest for a period of at least two years.
During the meeting, the hoteliers also asked the government to hire the services of a professional public relations and communications unit to send out one message to the world.
President Sirisena agreed to appoint a Cabinet sub-committee to look into the requirements of the hoteliers, the report said.
The meeting was also attended by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Ministers, ministry officials and members of the industry.
The Easter Sunday blasts were the first time that tourists were specifically targeted.
Following the bombings, the US, Britain, Australia, India and Israel warned their nationals against visiting Sri Lanka.
Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera recently told reporters that tourism will be the worst affected.
We expect a 30 per cent drop in arrivals and that means a loss of about $1.5 billion in foreign exchange, Mr. Samaraweera said, adding that the country could take up to two years to fully recover from the deadly bombings which shattered a decade of peace in the country.
Mount Lavinia Hotel south of the capital, a popular site for the tourists, has said there have been a large number of cancellations.
Galle Face Hotel top official Chandra Mohotti also said there will be huge cancellations.
In his first reaction to Sunday’s blasts, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said tourism industry will be hit by the blasts.
There will be a downward trend, Tourism will get affected. There may be fund outflows, Mr. Wickremesinghe said.
The industry officials said the rebound from the attacks would depend on the security measures to be adopted.
Sri Lanka’s tourism industry faced a difficult time until a decade ago due to the three-decade civil war with the LTTE which claimed at least 100,000 lives.
However, in the recent years Sri Lanka has emerged as a top tourist destination in Asia.
Tourism Observer
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