Valentine’s Day is all about celebrating love, romance, and affection, and this is how some of our well-known personalities plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day – 14th February:

Merlina Fernando (Singer)

Yes, it’s a special day for lovers all over the world and it’s even more special to me because 14th February is the birthday of my husband Suresh, who’s the lead guitarist of my band Mission.

We have planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day and his Birthday together and it will be a wonderful night as always.

We will be having our fans and close friends, on that night, with their loved ones at Highso – City Max hotel Dubai, from 9.00 pm onwards.

Lorensz Francke (Elvis Tribute Artiste)

On Valentine’s Day I will be performing a live concert at a Wealthy Senior Home for Men and Women, and their families will be attending, as well.

I will be performing live with romantic, iconic love songs and my song list would include ‘Can’t Help falling in Love’, ‘Love Me Tender’, ‘Burning Love’, ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’, ‘The Wonder of You’ and ‘’It’s Now or Never’ to name a few.

To make Valentine’s Day extra special I will give the Home folks red satin scarfs.

Emma Shanaya (Singer)

I plan on spending the day of love with my girls, especially my best friend. I don’t have a romantic Valentine this year but I am thrilled to spend it with the girl that loves me through and through. I’ll be in Colombo and look forward to go to a cute cafe and spend some quality time with my childhood best friend Zulha.

JAYASRI

Emma-and-Maneeka

This Valentine’s Day the band JAYASRI we will be really busy; in the morning we will be landing in Sri Lanka, after our Oman Tour; then in the afternoon we are invited as Chief Guests at our Maris Stella College Sports Meet, Negombo, and late night we will be with LineOne band live in Karandeniya Open Air Down South. Everywhere we will be sharing LOVE with the mass crowds.

Kay Jay (Singer)

I will stay at home and cook a lovely meal for lunch, watch some movies, together with Sanjaya, and, maybe we go out for dinner and have a lovely time. Come to think of it, every day is Valentine’s Day for me with Sanjaya Alles.

Maneka Liyanage (Beauty Tips)

On this special day, I celebrate love by spending meaningful time with the people I cherish. I prepare food with love and share meals together, because food made with love brings hearts closer. I enjoy my leisure time with them — talking, laughing, sharing stories, understanding each other, and creating beautiful memories. My wish for this Valentine’s Day is a world without fighting — a world where we love one another like our own beloved, where we do not hurt others, even through a single word or action. Let us choose kindness, patience, and understanding in everything we do.

Janaka Palapathwala (Singer)

Janaka

Valentine’s Day should not be the only day we speak about love.

From the moment we are born into this world, we seek love, first through the very drop of our mother’s milk, then through the boundless care of our Mother and Father, and the embrace of family.

Love is everywhere. All living beings, even plants, respond in affection when they are loved.

As we grow, we learn to love, and to be loved. One day, that love inspires us to build a new family of our own.

Love has no beginning and no end. It flows through every stage of life, timeless, endless, and eternal.

Natasha Rathnayake (Singer)

We don’t have any special plans for Valentine’s Day. When you’ve been in love with the same person for over 25 years, you realise that love isn’t a performance reserved for one calendar date. My husband and I have never been big on public displays, or grand gestures, on 14th February. Our love is expressed quietly and consistently, in ordinary, uncelebrated moments.

With time, you learn that love isn’t about proving anything to the world or buying into a commercialised idea of romance—flowers that wilt, sweets that spike blood sugar, and gifts that impress briefly but add little real value. In today’s society, marketing often pushes the idea that love is proven by how much money you spend, and that buying things is treated as a sign of commitment.

Real love doesn’t need reminders or price tags. It lives in showing up every day, choosing each other on unromantic days, and nurturing the relationship intentionally and without an audience.

This isn’t a judgment on those who enjoy celebrating Valentine’s Day. It’s simply a personal choice.

Melloney Dassanayake (Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2024)

I truly believe it’s beautiful to have a day specially dedicated to love. But, for me, Valentine’s Day goes far beyond romantic love alone. It celebrates every form of love we hold close to our hearts: the love for family, friends, and that one special person who makes life brighter. While 14th February gives us a moment to pause and celebrate, I always remind myself that love should never be limited to just one day. Every single day should feel like Valentine’s Day – constant reminder to the people we love that they are never alone, that they are valued, and that they matter.

I’m incredibly blessed because, for me, every day feels like Valentine’s Day. My special person makes sure of that through the smallest gestures, the quiet moments, and the simple reminders that love lives in the details. He shows me that it’s the little things that count, and that love doesn’t need grand stages to feel extraordinary. This Valentine’s Day, perfection would be something intimate and meaningful: a cozy picnic in our home garden, surrounded by nature, laughter, and warmth, followed by an abstract drawing session where we let our creativity flow freely. To me, that’s what love is – simple, soulful, expressive, and deeply personal. When love is real, every ordinary moment becomes magical.

Noshin De Silva (Actress)

Valentine’s Day is one of my favourite holidays! I love the décor, the hearts everywhere, the pinks and reds, heart-shaped chocolates, and roses all around. But honestly, I believe every day can be Valentine’s Day.

It doesn’t have to be just about romantic love. It’s a chance to celebrate love in all its forms with friends, family, or even by taking a little time for yourself.

Whether you’re spending the day with someone special or enjoying your own company, it’s a reminder to appreciate meaningful connections, show kindness, and lead with love every day.

And yes, I’m fully on theme this year with heart nail art and heart mehendi design!

Wishing everyone a very happy Valentine’s Day, but, remember, love yourself first, and don’t forget to treat yourself.

Sending my love to all of you.

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(Article 2 of the 4-part series on Sri Lanka’s tourism stagnation)

If Sri Lanka’s tourism story were a corporate income statement, the top line would satisfy any minister. Arrivals went up 15.1%, targets met, records broke. But walk down the statement and the story darkens. Revenue barely budges. Per-visitor yield collapses. The money that should accompany all those arrivals has quietly vanished, or, more accurately, never materialised.

This is not a recovery. It is a volume trap, more tourists generating less wealth, with policymakers either oblivious to the math or unwilling to confront it.

Problem Diagnosis: The Paradox of Plenty:

The numbers tell a brutal story.

Read that again: arrivals grew 15.1% year-on-year, but revenue grew only 1.6%. The average tourist in 2025 left behind $181 less than in 2024, an 11.7% decline. Compared to 2018, the drop is even sharper. In real terms, adjusting for inflation and currency depreciation, each visitor in 2025 generates approximately 27-30% less revenue than in 2018, despite Sri Lanka being “cheaper” due to the rupee’s collapse. This is not marginal variance. This is structural value destruction. (See Table 1)

The math is simple and damning: Sri Lanka is working harder for less. More tourists, lower yield, thinner margins. Why? Because we have confused accessibility with competitiveness. We have made ourselves “affordable” through currency collapse and discounting, not through value creation.

Root Causes: The Five Mechanisms of Value Destruction

The yield collapse is not random. It is the predictable outcome of specific policy failures and market dynamics.

1. Currency Depreciation as False Competitiveness

The rupee’s collapse post-2022 has made Sri Lanka appear “cheap” to foreigners. A hotel room priced at $100 in 2018 might cost $70-80 in effective purchasing power today due to depreciation. Tour operators have aggressively discounted to fill capacity during the crisis recovery.

This creates the illusion of competitiveness. Arrivals rise because we are a “bargain.” But the bargain is paid for by domestic suppliers, hotels, transport providers, restaurants, staff, whose input costs (energy, food, imported goods) have skyrocketed in rupee terms while room rates lag in dollar terms.

The transfer is explicit: value flows from Sri Lankan workers and businesses to foreign tourists. The tourism “recovery” extracts wealth from the domestic economy rather than injecting it.

2. Market Composition Shift: Trading European Yields for Asian Volumes

SLTDA data shows a deliberate (or accidental—the policy opacity makes it unclear) shift in source markets. (See Table 2)

The problem is not that we attract Indians or Russians, it is that we attract them without strategies to optimise their yield. As the next article in this series will detail, Indian tourists average approximately 5.27 nights compared to the 8-9 night overall average, with lower per-day spending. We have built recovery on volume from price-sensitive segments rather than value from high-yield segments.

This is a choice, though it appears no one consciously made it. Visa-free entry, aggressive India-focused marketing, and price positioning have tilted the market mix without any apparent analysis of revenue implications.

3. Length of Stay Decline and Activity Compression

Average length of stay has compressed. While overall averages hover around 8-9 nights in recent years, the composition matters. High-yield European and North American tourists who historically spent 10-12 nights are now spending 7-9. Indian tourists spend 5-6 nights.

Shorter stays mean less cumulative spending, fewer experiences consumed, less distribution of value across the tourism chain. A 10-night tourist patronises multiple regions, hotels, guides, restaurants. A 5-night tourist concentrates spending in 2-3 locations, typically Colombo, one beach, one cultural site.

The compression is driven partly by global travel trends (shorter, more frequent trips) but also by Sri Lanka’s failure to develop compelling multi-day itineraries, adequate inter-regional connectivity, and differentiated regional experiences. We have not given tourists reasons to stay longer.

4. Infrastructure Decay and Experience Degradation

Tourists pay for experiences, not arrivals. When experiences degrade, airport congestion, poor road conditions, inadequate facilities at cultural sites, safety concerns, spending falls even if arrivals hold.

The 2024-2025 congestion at Bandaranaike International Airport, with reports of tourists nearly missing flights due to bottlenecks, is the visible tip. Beneath are systemic deficits: poor last-mile connectivity to tourism sites, deteriorating heritage assets, unregistered businesses providing sub-standard services, outbound migration of trained staff.

An ADB report notes that tourism authorities face resource shortages and capital expenditure embargoes, preventing even basic facility improvements at major revenue generators like Sigiriya (which charges $36 per visitor and attracts 25% of all tourists). When a site generates substantial revenue but lacks adequate lighting, safety measures, and visitor facilities, the experience suffers, and so does yield.

5. Leakage: The Silent Revenue Drain

Tourism revenue figures are gross. Net foreign exchange contributions after leakages, is rarely calculated or published.

Leakages include:

· Imported food, beverages, amenities in hotels (often 30-40% of operating costs)

· Foreign ownership and profit repatriation

· International tour operators taking commissions upstream (tourists book through foreign platforms that retain substantial margins)

· Unlicensed operators and unregulated businesses evading taxes and formal banking channels

Industry sources estimate leakages can consume 40-60% of gross tourism revenue in developing economies with weak regulatory enforcement. Sri Lanka has not published comprehensive leakage studies, but all indicators, weak licensing enforcement, widespread informal sector activity, foreign ownership concentration in resorts, suggest leakages are substantial and growing.

The result: even the $3.22 billion headline figure overstates actual net contribution to the economy.

The Way Forward: From Volume to Value

Reversing the yield collapse requires

systematic policy reorientation, from arrivals-chasing to value-building.

First

, publish and track yield metrics as primary KPIs. SLTDA should report:

· Revenue per visitor (by source market, by season, by purpose)

· Average daily expenditure (disaggregated by accommodation, activities, food, retail)

· Net foreign exchange contribution after documented leakages

· Revenue per room night (adjusted for real exchange rates)

Make these as visible as arrival numbers. Hold policy-makers accountable for yield, not just volume.

Second

, segment markets explicitly by yield potential. Stop treating all arrivals as equivalent. Conduct market-specific yield analyses:

· Which markets spend most per day?

· Which stays longest?

· Which distributes spending across regions vs. concentrating in Colombo/beach corridors?

· Which book is through formal channels vs. informal operators?

Target marketing and visa policies accordingly. If Western European tourists spend $250/day for 10 nights while another segment spends $120/day for 5 nights, the revenue difference ($2,500 vs. $600) dictates where promotional resources should flow.

Third

, develop multi-day, multi-region itineraries with compelling value propositions. Tourists extend stays when there are reasons to stay. Create integrated experiences:

· Cultural triangle + beach + hill country circuits with seamless connectivity

· Themed tours (wildlife, wellness, culinary, adventure) requiring 10+ days

· Regional spread of accommodation and experiences to distribute economic benefits

This requires infrastructure investment, precisely what has been neglected.

Fourth

, regulations to minimise leakages. Enforce licensing for tourism businesses. Channel bookings through formal operators registered with commercial banks. Tax holiday schemes should prioritise investments that maximise local value retention, staff training, local sourcing, domestic ownership.

Fifth

, stop using currency depreciation as a competitive strategy. A weak rupee makes Sri Lanka “affordable” but destroys margins and transfers wealth outward. Real competitiveness comes from differentiated experiences, quality standards, and strategic positioning, not from being the “cheapest” option.

The Hard Math: What We’re Losing

Let’s make the cost explicit. If Sri Lanka maintained 2018 per-visitor spending levels ($1,877) on 2025 arrivals (2.36 million), revenue would be approximately $4.43 billion, not $3.22 billion. The difference: $1.21 billion in lost revenue, value that should have been generated but wasn’t.

That $1.21 billion is not a theoretical gap. It represents:

· Wages not paid

· Businesses not sustained

· Taxes not collected

· Infrastructure not funded

· Development not achieved

This is the cost of volume-chasing without yield discipline. Every year we continue this model; we lock in value destruction.

The Policy Failure: Why Arrivals Theater Persists

Why do policymakers fixate on arrivals when revenue tells the real story?

Because arrivals are politically legible. A minister can tout “record tourist numbers” in a press conference. Revenue per visitor requires explanation, context, and uncomfortable questions about policy choices.

Arrivals are easy to manipulate upward, visa-free entry, aggressive discounting, currency depreciation. Yield is hard, it requires product development, market curation, infrastructure investment, regulatory enforcement.

Arrivals theater is cheaper and quicker than strategic transformation. But this is governance failure at its most fundamental. Tourism’s contribution to economic recovery is not determined by how many planes land but by how much wealth each visitor creates and retains domestically. Every dollar spent celebrating arrival records while ignoring yield collapse is a waste of dollars.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Sri Lanka’s tourism “boom” is real in volume, but it is a value bust. We are attracting more tourists and generating less wealth. The industry is working harder for lower returns. Margins are compressed, staff are paid less in real terms, infrastructure decays, and the net contribution to national recovery underperforms potential.

This is not sustainable. Eventually, operators will exit. Quality will degrade further. The “affordable” positioning will shift to “cheap and deteriorating.” The volume will follow yield down.

We have two choices: acknowledge the yield crisis and reorient policy toward value creation or continue arrivals theater until the hollowness becomes undeniable.

The money has spoken. The question is whether anyone in power is listening.