Sri Lanka feels uncomfortable for the time being to add more casinos to the country by fear that the gambling might also bring more troubles such as prostitution to the island.
COLOMBO – As India has no casino outside Goa, Sri Lanka has seized the opportunity to position itself as the gambling destination in South Asia.
However, the government just refused the integration of casinos into the country in parallel to the development of three mega resorts in Colombo. The announcement was made on Saturday after protests saw this development as a path to more prostitution into the country.
The casino ban could potentially endanger the development of the three mega-resorts in Colombo, which have attracted investment worth $1.3-billion from foreign companies. They saw casinos as part of their development plan but the government rejected the plans, Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapakse said. “We will not allow casinos. That we say very clearly,” Rajapakse told parliament. “They asked, we did not allow, nor will we allow them in the future).”
A famous Buddhist monk has been very vocal opposing new hotels with casino due to fears of seeing gambling being then intimately linked to prostitution. A feeling that some prominent personalities in the travel industry also share but not in an open way. “I do not think that casinos add anything to the attractiveness of our country”, said one of them, under anonymity.
The three luxury resorts include the 450-room Crown Sri Lanka resort as well as two other projects worth respectively US$ 650 million and US$ 300 million. Allowing casinos into the country was originally part of the government strategy to boost total international arrivals froim 1.27 million last year to 2.5 million by 2016.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
