President Ranil Wickramasinghe has instructed the officials to prepare the plan and hand it over to him within 4 months to develop the Ella tourism zone under a grand plan.
The President informed the officials to prepare the plan together with the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Urban Development and the Ministry of Environment in the discussion held with the Ella Businessmen’s Association yesterday (16) in the morning at the Ella Flower Garden Hotel.
President Ranil Wickramasinghe who spoke here,
“Ella is a tourist area created by the people of this area. It now contributes widely to Sri Lanka’s economy. We hope to develop this tourist area according to a new comprehensive development plan. We are working to provide short-term solutions for the problems that have arisen here.
Today, a tourist who comes to the Maldives spends about 500 dollars a day. But a foreign tourist who comes to the Ella area spends twenty dollars a day. We must change this situation.
Trained workers are needed for the promotion of the tourism industry. Experienced tourist employees left the country during the last corona epidemic. They are very experienced employees. Tourists come expecting good service. We need trained employees to provide quality service for those tourists.
Steps should be taken to create an excellent tourism service under this vast development program. Also, we should make new plans so that the tourists coming to Uva province can be detained here for at least 07 days.
Also, an arrangement should be made to bring the tourists coming to the Eastern Province to Ella after that. Our new development plan should include a program to develop the Mattala Airport and bring tourists from Mattala directly to Ella. These plans affect the development of the country’s economy both in the short term and in the long term.
As well as developing the tourism sector, we must also work to maintain the banking sector in this country without collapsing. If the banking system collapses, tourists will not come to our country. Therefore, the government has a program to protect the tourism sector and the banking sector. We are going to do it. I request all of you to support it.”
I hope in this plan they would include good signage with proper directions guiding drivers from Martala to the Yala park because the google maps sends you in circles and a garbage language prouncination. The signage should be easy to follow, as the roadway to the Yala park is confusing at main junctions