The attack worries hundreds of thousands of people involved in the country’s lucrative tourism industry of Sri Lanka as the industry is already suffering badly due to the escalated violence, rights violations and intensified headlines regarding military operations in the country.

Many western countries issued travel warnings Sri Lanka for their citizens and asked their citizens to avoid Sri Lanka as their holiday destination.

The Sri Lanka tourism industry is considered to be one of the top foreign exchange earners for the country has suffered another body blow with the attack on the wildlife sanctuary.

Recently, the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has failed to convince even the Sri Lankan Air Line main stake holder Emirates to list Sri Lanka as one of the favorite holiday destinations in its holiday magazine also affected greatly the ailing Sri Lankan tourism industry.

The continuing conflict in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, and real threats of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) using it air power and military power to attack military and economical targets out side the theatre of war in the north and east of the country and increasingly gruesome headlines on the human rights situation in world capitals all having spiraling disastrous effects on the tourism industry of the country, says another observer in Colombo.

The latest attack is signaling the LTTE will use all its resources to attack Sri Lanka militarily and economically not only in the north and east but also in the other parts of Sri Lanka where Sri Lanka is vulnerable as it was proved by the attack in Yala.

Sri Lanka tourism industry sources said that the country's hotels are experiencing a bad season because of the heavy fighting between the government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), uncertainties in the peace front and significantly declined tourist arrivals to the country.

According to a country's tourist promotion official, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and New Zealand, some of the major countries that generate the majority of high spending visitors to Sri Lanka have fallen to 25 percent to 224,791 visitors up to end of June compared to last year in the same period. All these countries have issued travel advisories against their nationals from visiting Sri Lanka.

"Some friends said it was very stupid for us to come here because of the military conflict," a tourist from Britain said in Colombo.

"Tourist arrivals plunged 30 percent in June alone compared to a year ago and on weekdays, our occupation rate is only at about 30 percent. At weekends, the occupation rate can reach about 60 percent, but most of the guests are officials from NGOs. We have very few real tourists," said an official from country's tourism industry.

Although Sri Lanka says it mission for tourism in Sri Lanka is to delight foreign visitors and its customers and to build their loyalty to Sri Lanka as a favorite destination for them, hardly Sri Lanka doing genuinely anything to settle the protracted legitimate grievances of section of its citizens peacefully instead choosing the destructive military path causing not only the disastrous ends to the county's tourism industry but as a whole, to the country, says a political observer.

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