January 03, 2008	Thursday	Zilhaj 23, 1428

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s luxury hotels raised their rates on Wednesday despite an escalating ethnic civil war that triggered a 20 per cent drop in tourists.

Colombo’s 20 city hotels increased their minimum room rates to $105 from $70 to boost revenues and raise staff wages, said Shanthi Kumar of the Colombo City Hotels Association.

The drop in tourism is “of concern but our staff are finding it hard to keep up with the rising cost of living and we need to raise their wages and increase our revenues,” said Kumar.

The room rate rise comes as the tropical island’s civil war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1972 intensifies.

On Wednesday, suspected Tamil Tiger rebels set off a powerful roadside bomb in the Sri Lankan capital, killing at least five people and wounding 26.

The powerful Claymore mine — a fragmentation bomb packed with ball bearings — targeted an army bus transporting wounded soldiers but hospital officials said most victims were civilians.

No foreign tourists were hit by the blast, but the colonial-style Nippon Hotel suffered extensive damage and its staff were among the wounded.

Tourism officials say the conflict is discouraging tourists from visiting the palm-fringed island.

“We’re concerned about the impact of today’s blast on city hotels,” Sri Lanka Tourism director general S. Kalaiselvam said.

Tourists arrivals fell by 20 per cent to 470,000 in 2007, state-run Sri Lanka Tourism said, while tourist industry earnings fell 15 per cent to $302.5 million over the 10 months to October from the same period in 2006.

Tourism is Sri Lanka’s fourth-largest foreign exchange earner after garments, remittances from overseas workers and tea.

Sri Lanka, meanwhile, has reopened its most popular wildlife sanctuary after security forces deployed a large number of security personnel to protect it from rebel attacks, officials said on Wednesday.

The Yala National Park was shut for 10 weeks after seven soldiers were killed in a rebel attack on the popular tourist destination, home to leopards, elephants and migratory birds, officials said.—AFP