Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
9
POSTCARD FROM SRI LANKA: WAR,
REVOLUTION, TOURISM
Sri Lanka was an island paradise wrapped in barbed wire when I visited six months after the
civil war ended in 2009. That conflict had lasted twenty-five years, effectively shutting down
what had been a promising tourism trade. The questions were, how long would it take for
the country to revive tourism or for investors to rush in and buy prime property at fire-sale
prices, and, would tourism help the divided communities recover from those decades of
loss and horror? Families were still searching for their missing; the country was waiting for a
full and probably illusive accounting of the human and material cost of the conflict. In this
atmosphere confidence in the future was in short supply.
On the thirty-minute drive from the airport our car had to pass inspection at three
heavily armed guard posts. Rising above the skyline of tropical cement buildings and streets
crowded with motorcycle taxis and bicycles were giant billboards of the president, Mahinda
Rajapaksa, smiling like a movie star and wearing his trademark red scarf over a flowing
white shirt. When we reached my hotel—the five-star Cinnamon Grand—I wasn't sur-
prised to see barbed wire choking off access to the esplanade facing the sea.
The moment I checked in, I understood a basic consequence of the long war. My premi-
um suite was a bargain. The Cinnamon Grand is the city's premier hotel, with beautiful
gardens and a swimming pool, in the best part of town. Yet it cost only $151 a night, break-
fast included, less than half of what I had paid the week before in the far less lovely city
of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The cavernous lobby was bustling with locals—with the war over,
everyone was hosting a dinner or a dance party; we tourists were in the minority.
My day job that first week was teaching journalism workshops on behalf of the U.S. em-
bassy, culminating with a public lecture. My topic was postwar tourism. In the audience
were two men who became my tourism gurus: Hiran Cooray and Geoffrey Dobbs. Cooray
is the chairman of Jetwing, Sri Lanka's foremost tour agency and a member of the com-
mercial aristocracy of the island. His family is descended from Sri Lanka's small Catholic
community, which was first converted by Portuguese colonialists. Dobbs is from an English
family that has a few colonialists in its past. He has the demeanor of a casual entrepreneur
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