Features

NEW DOORS OPENED IN LONDON – Part 41

Published

4 years ago

2022/03/20

Sahan Weerasooriya

CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil

President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada

Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum

chandij@sympatico.ca

Trust House Forte

I arrived in London during the summer of 1979 to undergo a special Management Observer/Trainee program with the largest hotel chain in the United Kingdom – Trust House Forte (THF). I had worked at their hotel in Sri Lanka, the Pegasus Reef Hotel, during my first year at the Ceylon Hotel School seven years before as a part-time bus boy. What I did not know about THF was that by 1979 it had emerged as the largest and the most profitable hotel and catering company in the world.

As required, I went to the THF Personnel Division on my first Monday in London. “I am Geoffrey Pye, the Director of Personnel for THF hotels in London. I will personally conduct your orientation to THF”, a well-dressed and kind gentleman informed me. “Meet Miss Linda Woodhouse, the new Training Officer of the Cumberland Hotel.” He introduced a young and friendly lady who was assigned to coordinate my management observation/training program.

Linda informed me that by staying at the Regent Palace Hotel I would be a guest observer there. My main assignment was at the Cumberland, a 900-room hotel located above the Marble Arch underground station. “Chandi, you are lucky to be able to understudy Mr. Bejaramo, our famous Catering Manager”, Linda told me. It was my first orientation program.

As a British-owned group, THF’s presence in the United Kingdom was clearly visible with massive contract catering operations, large restaurant chains and some of the most iconic hotels. In London, THF owned and managed some of the greatest hotels in the Commonwealth, such the Grosvenor House, Hyde Park Hotel, the Cumberland, the Strand Palace, the Browns, the Russell, and the Waldorf. THF also owned and managed the famous banquet venue – Café Royal situated very close to the Regent Palace Hotel and Piccadilly Circus.

Linda provided me with many interesting facts about THF’s history and current operations. Sir Charles Forte had become the CEO of THF in 1971. He was an Italian-born British caterer and hotelier who founded the leisure and hotel conglomerate that ultimately became known as the Forte Group in later years. When he was four years of age, Charles had migrated from Italy to Scotland with his family. After working in milk bars operated by his father in Scotland, at age 26 Charles moved to the capital city with £2,000 borrowed from his father to set up his own first milk bar in London in 1935. Having expanded his business into catering and hotel businesses, in 1970 he orchestrated a clever merger of the Forte Holdings with an older hotel and catering group, Trust Houses Ltd. That merger resulted in the formation of Trust House Forte or THF.

In Britain, THF continued its hotel expansion with various ambitious acquisitions including the 1976 purchase of the Lyons Hotel Group, a substantial assortment of first-class hotels including the Cumberland and the Regent Palace. For decades, Sir Charles attempted to take control of, arguably, the most famous hotel in the United Kingdom since 1889 – Savoy Hotel. The vision, hard work and business acumen of Sir Charles resulted in THF managing over 900 hotels in 44 countries by the year 1979.

Sir Charles’s only son, Rocco Forte, an Oxford‐educated linguist and a chartered accountant, was expected to eventually succeed his father to lead the THF empire. A subsequent acquisition of Le Meridien from Air France was a prestigious addition to the group. For decades the Forte family was successful in keeping hostile takeover bidders at bay, until 1996. I never had the opportunity of meeting Sir Charles, but in later years, as the general manager of two Forte hotels in South America, I had the opportunity of welcoming and hosting Sir Rocco Forte (he was knighted in 1995). Sir Rocco established his own company – Rocco Forte Hotels in the year 1996.

Building an International Career

In professional life, opportunities gained, contacts made and relationships nurtured can significantly and positively impact career progression. After 1979, I kept in touch with Linda Woodhouse, who helped me by arranging two more useful management observer assignments in London with THF. These were during the mid-1980s at the Grosvenor House Hotel and the Hyde Park Hotel. That exposure opened another door for me to secure a position as an internationally mobile expatriate hotel general manager of THF/Forte PLC in 1994, with special help from Mr. Bodhipala Wijesinghe, who worked at the TFH head office in London.

In that capacity I managed three of their hotels – Forte Crest/Guyana Pegasus Hotel, Timberhead Eco Resort in the Amazon Rainforest and Forte Grand/ Le Meridien/Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. In 1994, out of nearly 1,000 hotel general managers in the group, only four came from developing countries, and I was one of them. Sri Lankan accountant and hotelier, Ranjan Nadarajah (Nada) who passed away last week in UAE was another. In the year 1998, the two hotels managed by Nada and I became the first hotels to be awarded ISO 9002 certifications in our two regions (The Middle East and North America). Nada was a very nice colleague, and I did a short mystery shopper assignment for him at Le Meridien Dubai in the year 2000.

I also did the General Manager’s Foundation study program at the Forte Academy in the UK. I shadowed some of my peers, general managers of sister Forte Hotels in the UK, Barbados, the Bahamas, Bermuda, USA and Canada. In 1998, the group kindly arranged for me to have a two-year sabbatical leave in order to complete my doctoral studies in the UK. “This is a very unusual request! You are one of our best GMs, so why do you need a PhD?” a confused Human Resource Vice President of the corporate office of Forte PLC asked me, prior to approving my request for the sabbatical leave.

After successfully defending my doctoral thesis in London, in the early 2000s, I declined three lucrative offers from Forte PLC/Rocco Forte Hotels to work in Egypt, India and Russia. That was due to my family commitments in Canada and my new desire to pursue a second career in post-secondary education and management consulting. In 2002, I did a long mystery shopper assignment with my wife, at Le Royal Meridien King Edward Hotel in Toronto, Canada. Altogether I gained some type of work experience at 14 Forte hotels located in ten countries between 1971 and 2002. In the years 2003 and 2004, I also did a leadership development consulting assignment for Rocco Forte Hotels in England and Scotland. Thank you for all these amazing opportunities, THF/Forte PLC/Rocco Forte hotels!

A Guest at the Largest Hotel in the UK

In 1979, being the manager of the small 52-room Hotel Swanee in Sri Lanka, staying at THF as well as UK’s largest hotel (1,068 rooms), the Regent Palace was overwhelming for me. The hotel looked after me very well by providing full board accommodation on a complimentary basis for two months. Like most of the major hotels of THF chain at that time, the Regent Palace offered a carvery buffet every day. I was a frequent diner at that sumptuous carvery whenever I did not have my meals at the Cumberland Hotel where I worked.

Although it was the largest hotel in Europe when it was opened in 1915 by J. Lyons & Company, most of the rooms at the Regent Palace were very small, similar to hotels opened before or during World War I. I was surprised that some rooms did not have attached bathrooms, only wash basins. In spite of some shortcomings, I was very happy staying right in the heart of London. It was the most convenient location for me.

The Regent Palace was within close proximity to the Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, West End theatres, Leicester Square movie theatres, Regent Street shops as well as to many museums and art galleries. I was very happy to be there and walked all over London. If it was not raining, I walked to the Marble Arch to work. On rainy days I took the subway or a bus.

Some weekends I had many invitations from Sri Lankan friends, members of my family, a few former guests of Hotel Swanee, and the Swedish and Sri Lankan couple who worked at the Tjaereborg Tour Company’s office in London – Kurt Hansen and Bobby Jordan, who were my friends from Ceysands days. I had a busy social calendar during the evenings and free weekends. I also visited a few of my younger Sri Lankan friends who worked at Wimpy Bars in the West End.

Ranjith Dharmaratnam (Assistant Manager of the Village, Habarana), who travelled to London with me, was trained at the accounts department of another THF hotel – Grosvenor House. As he had family in London, he did not stay at the Regent Palace. One day I unexpectedly met a former work colleague of mine from Bentota Beach Hotel who had moved to the Pegasus Reef Hotel to be the Front Office Manager. Having noticed his potential, THF had sent Srilal Mendis (Menda) for training in London. A few years after his training Menda also became an international hotelier. Menda and I explored most of the tourist attractions in London and surrounding areas during weekends. I also travelled to Windsor, Winchester, Portsmouth and South Hampton.

The late 1970s were not always a peaceful era in the UK. I was shocked to see on TV, that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) claimed responsibility for the August 27, 1979 murder of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. As the supreme allied commander for Southeast Asia, he had commanded the British troops from his base in Ceylon during the latter part of World War II. For a few days I was glued to the TV in my hotel room, watching news about that shocking assassination.

A Management Trainee of a 900-room Hotel

My work at the Cumberland Hotel was mainly in the Food and Beverage department. It was much grander than the Regent Palace and had a very busy catering and banqueting operation. The public rooms, restaurants, banquet hall and grill room were located centrally. I also spent some time observing and working in the catering department as well as the kitchens, purchasing, receiving, stores, payroll and accounts departments.

I was a regular at management meetings, simply to observe. The most useful meeting I attended was a top-level meeting among managers of 20 THF hotels in London, to coordinate their Christmas and New Year’s Eve events. This was one best practice I implemented soon after returning to Hotel Swanee. I loved to talk with all levels of employees and gathered interesting, historical information of this grand hotel.

Stemming from that interest, five years later in 1984, I wrote a 100,000-word (353 pages) master’s dissertation at the University of Surrey about British five-star hotels. I did my field research at all 16 five-star London hotels. Most parts of my master’s dissertation were later published as a text book for British universities, with my supervisor, Professor Richard Kotas of the University of Surrey, as the co-author. In the early 1990’s I succeeded him as the Director of the Hotel School at Schiller International University’s London Campus.

The island site bounded by Oxford Street, Old Quebec Street, Bryanston Street and Great Cumberland Place, had been acquired around 1925, by Lyons for building the Cumberland Hotel. It eventually opened in 1933. The hotel was a pioneer by including many luxurious features at that time, such as sound-proof, double glazed windows, air conditioning and 900 bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms.

The Cumberland had been acquired by THF, two years before I did my management training there. I found that some of the old-timers from Lyons had doubts about the changes implemented by THF. During some good weather days, I spent my lunch breaks seated at the nearby Hyde Park observing birds, playful pet dogs and at times listening to speakers on soap boxes attempting to attract larger audiences. I found every corner of this great city interesting.

With my invaluable experiences of luxury hotel operations at the Cumberland Hotel, I began dreaming of one day becoming the General Manager of a large international five-star hotel. As I looked around, I was disappointed that none of the General Managers, at that time, looked like me or came from developing countries. Most of those General Managers in the London five-star hotels had the British professional qualification – Member of the Hotel & Catering International Management Association (MHCIMA). As the HCIMA head office was in London, I decided to visit them to check on my chances of becoming an MHCIMA.

Door Closed at HCIMA

HCIMA had an impressive total of 23,000 members (21,000 British) professional members. It usually took four years of undergraduate degree level studies plus five more years of post-qualification management experience to obtain the professional title of MHCIMA. Then it was the highest qualification in the United Kingdom for hospitality managers. One day, a little bit nervously I visited the HCIMA head office in South London to check my chances of becoming an MHCIMA.

The HCIMA officer who interviewed me, rejected my application, as she did not recognize my three-year diploma from the Ceylon Hotel School, as compatible to a British HND or OND. She insisted that I complete four years of studies with HCIMA, before being considered for MHCIMA qualification. To me a rejection is always a great motivator, which inspires me to do better and at times, find practical short cuts. After that meeting, I decided that I will eventually earn this qualification, to lay a stronger foundation to become the General Manager of a five-star international hotel.

After a few years of further studies and numerous communications with HCIMA, finally I managed to become an MHCIMA in 1984, and a Fellow (FHCIMA) in 1992. In 2004, after serving HCIMA Board as an elected International Zone Representative for three years, I was elected as the worldwide President of HCIMA (now the Institute of Hospitality, UK), and appointed Chairman of HCIMA Ltd, UK, the commercial enterprise of the professional association.

In those two roles, I was fortunate to get a unique opportunity to lead the world’s largest professional body for hospitality managers in 104 countries with 25 international groups and 26 British chapters. For 84 years since the inception of this professional body in 1938, all Presidents were Europeans, except when a Sri Lankan was elected in 2004.

It was exactly 25 years after arriving in the UK as a first-time visitor and a nervous management trainee in 1979, that I was elected by my British hospitality management peers, as their President. The lesson here, for aspiring young hospitality managers, is that: “Treat the sky as the limit. As long as you have a vision for the future combined with hard work and passion, you can make things seem impossible to eventually happen”. At times the light may not be visible at the end of the tunnel, but that should not be an excuse not to dream big and work hard to achieve unprecedented goals. Go, open new doors!

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Features

Building on Sand: The Indian market trap

Published

2 hours ago

2026/02/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

(Part III in a series on Sri Lanka’s tourism stagnation.)

Every SLTDA (Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority) press release now leads with the same headline: India is Sri Lanka’s “star market.” The numbers seem to prove it, 531,511 Indian arrivals in 2025, representing 22.5% of all tourists. Officials celebrate the “half-million milestone” and set targets for 600,000, 700,000, more.

But follow the money instead of the headcount, and a different picture emerges. We are building our tourism recovery on a low-spending, short-stay, operationally challenging segment, without any serious strategy to transform it into a high-value market. We have confused market size with market quality, and the confusion is costing us billions.

Per-day spending: While SLTDA does not publish market-specific daily expenditure data, industry operators and informal analyses consistently report Indian tourists in the $100-140 per day range, compared to $180-250 for Western European and North American markets.

The math is brutal and unavoidable: one Western European tourist generates the revenue of 3-4 Indian tourists. Building tourism recovery primarily on the low-yield segment is strategically incoherent, unless the goal is arrivals theater rather than economic contribution.

Comparative Analysis: How Competitors Handle Indian Outbound Tourism

India is not unique to Sri Lanka. Indian outbound tourism reached 30.23 million departures in 2024, an 8.4% year-on-year increase, driven by a growing middle class with disposable income. Every competitor destination is courting this market.

This is not diversification. It is concentration risk dressed up as growth.

How did we end up here? Through a combination of policy laziness, proximity bias, and refusal to confront yield trade-offs.

1. Proximity as Strategy Substitute

India is next door. Flights are short (1.5-3 hours), frequent, and cheap. This makes India the easiest market to attract, low promotional cost, high visibility, strong cultural and linguistic overlap. But easiest is not the same as best.

Tourism strategy should optimize for yield-adjusted effort. Yes, attracting Europeans requires longer promotional cycles, higher marketing spend, and sustained brand-building. But if each European generates 3x the revenue of an Indian tourist, the return on investment is self-evident.

We have chosen ease over effectiveness, proximity over profitability.

2. Visa Policy as Blunt Instrument

3. Failure to Develop High-Value Products for Indian Market

There are segments of Indian outbound tourism that spend heavily:

* Wedding tourism: Indian destination weddings can generate $50,000-200,000+ per event

* Wellness/Ayurveda tourism: High-net-worth Indians seek authentic wellness experiences and will pay premium rates

* MICE tourism: Corporate events, conferences, incentive travel

Sri Lanka has these assets—coastal venues for weddings, Ayurvedic heritage, colonial hotels suitable for corporate events. But we have not systematically developed and marketed these products to high-yield Indian segments.

For the first time in 2025, Sri Lanka conducted multi-city roadshows across India to promote wedding tourism. This is welcome—but it is 25 years late. The Maldives and Mauritius have been curating Indian wedding and MICE tourism for decades, building specialised infrastructure, training staff, and integrating these products into marketing.

We are entering a mature market with no track record, no specialised infrastructure, and no price positioning that signals premium quality.

4. Operational Challenges and Quality Perceptions

Indian tourists, particularly budget segments, present operational challenges:

* Shorter stays mean higher turnover, more check-ins, more logistical overhead per dollar of revenue

* Price sensitivity leads to aggressive bargaining, complaints over perceived overcharging

* Large groups (families, wedding parties) require specialised handling

None of these are insurmountable, but they require investment in training, systems, and service design. Sri Lanka has not made these investments systematically. The result: operators report higher operational costs per Indian guest while generating lower revenue, a toxic margin squeeze.

Additionally, Sri Lanka’s positioning as a “budget-friendly” destination reinforces price expectations. Indians comparing Sri Lanka to Thailand or Malaysia see Sri Lanka as cheaper, not better. We compete on price, not value, a race to the bottom.

The Strategic Error: Mistaking Market Size for Market Fit

India’s outbound tourism market is massive, 30 million+ and growing. But scale is not the same as fit.

Market size ≠ market value: The UAE attracts 7.5 million Indians, but as a high-yield segment (business, luxury shopping, upscale hospitality). Saudi Arabia attracts 3.3 million—but for religious pilgrimage with high per-capita spending and long stays.

Thailand attracts 1.8 million Indians as part of a diversified 35-million-tourist base. Indians represent 5% of Thailand’s mix. Sri Lanka has made Indians 22.5% of our mix, 4.5 times Thailand’s concentration, while generating a fraction of Thailand’s revenue.

This reveals the error. We have prioritised volume from a market segment without ensuring the segment aligns with our value proposition.

These needs are misaligned. Indians seek budget value; Sri Lanka needs yield. Indians want short trips; Sri Lanka needs extended stays. Indians are price-sensitive; Sri Lanka needs premium segments to fund infrastructure.

We have attracted a market that does not match our strategic needs—and then celebrated the mismatch as success.

The Way Forward: From Dependency to Diversification

Fixing the Indian market trap requires three shifts: curation, diversification, and premium positioning.

First

, segment the Indian market and target high-value niches explicitly:

* Wedding tourism: Develop specialised wedding venues, train planners, create integrated packages ($50k+ per event)

* Wellness tourism: Position Sri Lanka as authentic Ayurveda destination for high-net-worth health seekers

* MICE tourism: Target Indian corporate incentive travel and conferences

* Spiritual/religious tourism: Leverage Buddhist and Hindu heritage sites with premium positioning

Market these high-value niches aggressively. Let budget segments self-select out through pricing signals.

Second

, rebalance market mix toward high-yield segments:

* Increase marketing spend on Western Europe, North America, and East Asian premium segments

* Develop products (luxury eco-lodges, boutique heritage hotels, adventure tourism) that appeal to high-yield travelers

* Use visa policy strategically, maintain visa-free for premium markets, consider tiered visa fees or curated visa schemes for volume markets

Third

, stop benchmarking success by Indian arrival volumes. Track:

* Revenue per Indian visitor

* Indian market share of total revenue (not arrivals)

* Yield gap: Indian revenue vs. other major markets

If Indians are 22.5% of arrivals but only 15% of revenue, we have a problem. If the gap widens, we are deepening dependency on a low-yield segment.

Fourth

, invest in Indian market quality rather than quantity:

* Train staff on Indian high-end expectations (luxury service standards, dietary needs)

* Develop bilingual guides and materials (Hindi, Tamil)

* Build partnerships with premium Indian travel agents, not budget consolidators

We should aim to attract 300,000 Indians generating $1,500 per trip (through wedding, wellness, MICE targeting), not 700,000 generating $600 per trip. The former produces $450 million; the latter produces $420 million, while requiring more than twice the operational overhead and infrastructure load.

Fifth

, accept the hard truth: India cannot and should not be 30-40% of our market mix. The structural yield constraints make that model non-viable. Cap Indian arrivals at 15-20% of total mix and aggressively diversify into higher-yield markets.

This will require political courage, saying “no” to easy volume in favour of harder-won value. But that is what strategy means: choosing what not to do.

The Dependency Trap

Every market concentration creates path dependency. The more we optimize for Indian tourists, visa schemes, marketing, infrastructure, pricing, the harder it becomes to attract high-yield markets that expect different value propositions.

Hotels that compete on price for Indian segments cannot simultaneously position as luxury for European segments. Destinations known for “affordability” struggle to pivot to premium. Guides trained for high-turnover, short-stay groups do not develop the deep knowledge required for extended cultural tours.

We are locking in a low-yield equilibrium. Each incremental Indian arrival strengthens the positioning as a “budget-friendly” destination, which repels high-yield segments, which forces further volume-chasing in price-sensitive markets. The cycle reinforces itself.

Breaking the cycle requires accepting short-term pain—lower arrival numbers—for long-term gain—higher revenue, stronger positioning, sustainable margins.

The Hard Question

Is Sri Lanka willing to attract two million tourists generating $5 billion, or three million tourists generating $4 billion?

The current trajectory is toward the latter, more arrivals, less revenue, thinner margins, greater fragility. We are optimizing for metrics that impress press releases but erode economic contribution.

The Indian market is not the problem. The problem is building tourism recovery primarily on a low-yield segment without strategies to either transform that segment to high-yield or balance it with high-yield markets.

We are building on sand. The foundation will not hold.

(The writer, a senior Chartered Accountant and professional banker, is Professor at SLIIT, Malabe. The views and opinions expressed in this article are personal.)

Features

Digital transformation in the Global South

Published

1 day ago

2026/02/24

Sahan Weerasooriya

AI Summit, India

Understanding Sri Lanka through the India AI Impact Summit 2026

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly moved from being a specialised technological field into a major social force that shapes economies, cultures, governance, and everyday human life. The India AI Impact Summit 2026, held in New Delhi, symbolised a significant moment for the Global South, especially South Asia, because it demonstrated that artificial intelligence is no longer limited to advanced Western economies but can also become a development tool for emerging societies. The summit gathered governments, researchers, technology companies, and international organisations to discuss how AI can support social welfare, public services, and economic growth. Its central message was that artificial intelligence should be human centred and socially useful. Instead of focusing only on powerful computing systems, the summit emphasised affordable technologies, open collaboration, and ethical responsibility so that ordinary citizens can benefit from digital transformation. For South Asia, where large populations live in rural areas and resources are unevenly distributed, this idea is particularly important.

People friendly AI

One of the most important concepts promoted at the summit was the idea of “people friendly AI.” This means that artificial intelligence should be accessible, understandable, and helpful in daily activities. In South Asia, language diversity and economic inequality often prevent people from using advanced technology. Therefore, systems designed for local languages, and smartphones, play a crucial role. When a farmer can speak to a digital assistant in Sinhala, Tamil, or Hindi and receive advice about weather patterns or crop diseases, technology becomes practical rather than distant. Similarly, voice based interfaces allow elderly people and individuals with limited literacy to use digital services. Affordable mobile based AI tools reduce the digital divide between urban and rural populations. As a result, artificial intelligence stops being an elite instrument and becomes a social assistant that supports ordinary life.

Transformation in education sector

The influence of this transformation is visible in education. AI based learning platforms can analyse student performance and provide personalised lessons. Instead of all students following the same pace, weaker learners receive additional practice while advanced learners explore deeper material. Teachers are able to focus on mentoring and explanation rather than repetitive instruction. In many South Asian societies, including Sri Lanka, education has long depended on memorisation and private tuition classes. AI tutoring systems could reduce educational inequality by giving rural students access to learning resources, similar to those available in cities. A student who struggles with mathematics, for example, can practice step by step exercises automatically generated according to individual mistakes. This reduces pressure, improves confidence, and gradually changes the educational culture from rote learning toward understanding and problem solving.

Healthcare is another area where AI is becoming people friendly. Many rural communities face shortages of doctors and medical facilities. AI-assisted diagnostic tools can analyse symptoms, or medical images, and provide early warnings about diseases. Patients can receive preliminary advice through mobile applications, which helps them decide whether hospital visits are necessary. This reduces overcrowding in hospitals and saves travel costs. Public health authorities can also analyse large datasets to monitor disease outbreaks and allocate resources efficiently. In this way, artificial intelligence supports not only individual patients but also the entire health system.

Agriculture, which remains a primary livelihood for millions in South Asia, is also undergoing transformation. Farmers traditionally rely on seasonal experience, but climate change has made weather patterns unpredictable. AI systems that analyse rainfall data, soil conditions, and satellite images can predict crop performance and recommend irrigation schedules. Early detection of plant diseases prevents large-scale crop losses. For a small farmer, accurate information can mean the difference between profit and debt. Thus, AI directly influences economic stability at the household level.

Employment and communication reshaped

Artificial intelligence is also reshaping employment and communication. Routine clerical and repetitive tasks are increasingly automated, while demand grows for digital skills, such as data management, programming, and online services. Many young people in South Asia are beginning to participate in remote work, freelancing, and digital entrepreneurship. AI translation tools allow communication across languages, enabling businesses to reach international customers. Knowledge becomes more accessible because information can be summarised, translated, and explained instantly. This leads to a broader sociological shift: authority moves from tradition and hierarchy toward information and analytical reasoning. Individuals rely more on data when making decisions about education, finance, and career planning.

Impact on Sri Lanka

The impact on Sri Lanka is especially significant because the country shares many social and economic conditions with India and often adopts regional technological innovations. Sri Lanka has already begun integrating artificial intelligence into education, agriculture, and public administration. In schools and universities, AI learning tools may reduce the heavy dependence on private tuition and help students in rural districts receive equal academic support. In agriculture, predictive analytics can help farmers manage climate variability, improving productivity and food security. In public administration, digital systems can speed up document processing, licensing, and public service delivery. Smart transportation systems may reduce congestion in urban areas, saving time and fuel.

Economic opportunities are also expanding. Sri Lanka’s service based economy and IT outsourcing sector can benefit from increased global demand for digital skills. AI-assisted software development, data annotation, and online service platforms can create new employment pathways, especially for educated youth. Small and medium entrepreneurs can use AI tools to design products, manage finances, and market services internationally at low cost. In tourism, personalised digital assistants and recommendation systems can improve visitor experiences and help small businesses connect with travellers directly.

Digital inequality

However, the integration of artificial intelligence also raises serious concerns. Digital inequality may widen if only educated urban populations gain access to technological skills. Some routine jobs may disappear, requiring workers to retrain. There are also risks of misinformation, surveillance, and misuse of personal data. Ethical regulation and transparency are, therefore, essential. Governments must develop policies that protect privacy, ensure accountability, and encourage responsible innovation. Public awareness and digital literacy programmes are necessary so that citizens understand both the benefits and limitations of AI systems.

Beyond economics and services, AI is gradually influencing social relationships and cultural patterns. South Asian societies have traditionally relied on hierarchy and personal authority, but data-driven decision making changes this structure. Agricultural planning may depend on predictive models rather than ancestral practice, and educational evaluation may rely on learning analytics instead of examination rankings alone. This does not eliminate human judgment, but it alters its basis. Societies increasingly value analytical thinking, creativity, and adaptability. Educational systems must, therefore, move beyond memorisation toward critical thinking and interdisciplinary learning.

AI contribution to national development

In Sri Lanka, these changes may contribute to national development if implemented carefully. AI-supported financial monitoring can improve transparency and reduce corruption. Smart infrastructure systems can help manage transportation and urban planning. Communication technologies can support interaction among Sinhala, Tamil, and English speakers, promoting social inclusion in a multilingual society. Assistive technologies can improve accessibility for persons with disabilities, enabling broader participation in education and employment. These developments show that artificial intelligence is not merely a technological innovation but a social instrument capable of strengthening equality when guided by ethical policy.

Symbolic shift

Ultimately, the India AI Impact Summit 2026 represents a symbolic shift in the global technological landscape. It indicates that developing nations are beginning to shape the future of artificial intelligence according to their own social needs rather than passively importing technology. For South Asia and Sri Lanka, the challenge is not whether AI will arrive but how it will be used. If education systems prepare citizens, if governments establish responsible regulations, and if access remains inclusive, AI can become a partner in development rather than a source of inequality. The future will likely involve close collaboration between humans and intelligent systems, where machines assist decision making while human values guide outcomes. In this sense, artificial intelligence does not replace human society, but transforms it, offering Sri Lanka an opportunity to build a more knowledge based, efficient, and equitable social order in the decades ahead.

by Milinda Mayadunna

Features

Governance cannot be a postscript to economics

Published

1 day ago

2026/02/24

Sahan Weerasooriya

Kristalina-Georgieva

The visit by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva to Sri Lanka was widely described as a success for the government. She was fulsome in her praise of the country and its developmental potential. The grounds for this success and collaborative spirit go back to the inception of the agreement signed in March 2023 in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s declaration of international bankruptcy. The IMF came in to fulfil its role as lender of last resort. The government of the day bit the bullet. It imposed unpopular policies on the people, most notably significant tax increases. At a moment when the country had run out of foreign exchange, defaulted on its debt, and faced shortages of fuel, medicine and food, the IMF programme restored a measure of confidence both within the country and internationally.

Since 1965 Sri Lanka has entered into agreements with the IMF on 16 occasions none of which were taken to their full term. The present agreement is the 17^th agreement . IMF agreements have traditionally been focused on economic restructuring. Invariably the terms of agreement have been harsh on the people, with priority being given to ensure the debtor country pays its loans back to the IMF. Fiscal consolidation, tax increases, subsidy reductions and structural reforms have been the recurring features. The social and political costs have often been high. Governments have lost popularity and sometimes fallen before programmes were completed. The IMF has learned from experience across the world that macroeconomic reform without social protection can generate backlash, instability and policy reversals.

The experience of countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal in dealing with the IMF during the eurozone crisis demonstrated the political and social costs of austerity, even though those economies later stabilised and returned to growth. The evolution of IMF policies has ensured that there are two special features in the present agreement. The first is that the IMF has included a safety net of social welfare spending to mitigate the impact of the austerity measures on the poorest sections of the population. No country can hope to grow at 7 or 8 percent per annum when a third of its people are struggling to survive. Poverty alleviation measures in the Aswesuma programme, developed with the agreement of the IMF, are key to mitigating the worst impacts of the rising cost of living and limited opportunities for employment.

Governance Included

The second important feature of the IMF agreement is the inclusion of governance criteria to be implemented alongside the economic reforms. It goes to the heart of why Sri Lanka has had to return to the IMF repeatedly. Economic mismanagement did not take place in a vacuum. It was enabled by weak institutions, politicised decision making, non-transparent procurement, and the erosion of checks and balances. In its economic reform process, the IMF has included an assessment of governance related issues to accompany the economic restructuring process. At the top of this list is tackling the problem of corruption by means of publicising contracts, ensuring open solicitation of tenders, and strengthening financial accountability mechanisms.

The IMF also encouraged a civil society diagnostic study and engaged with civil society organisations regularly. The civil society analysis of governance issues which was promoted by Verite Research and facilitated by Transparency International was wider in scope than those identified in the IMF’s own diagnostic. It pointed to systemic weaknesses that go beyond narrow fiscal concerns. The civil society diagnostic study included issues of social justice such as the inequitable impact of targeting EPF and ETF funds of workers for restructuring and the need to repeal abuse prone laws such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Online Safety Act. When workers see their retirement savings restructured without adequate consultation, confidence in policy making erodes. When laws are perceived to be instruments of arbitrary power, social cohesion weakens.

During a meeting between the IMF Managing Director Georgeiva and civil society members last week, there was discussion on the implementation of those governance measures in which she spoke in a manner that was not alien to the civil society representatives. Significantly, the civil society diagnostic report also referred to the ethnic conflict and the breakdown of interethnic relations that led to three decades of deadly war, causing severe economic losses to the country. This was also discussed at the meeting. Governance is not only about accounting standards and procurement rules. It is about social justice, equality before the law, and political representation. On this issue the government has more to do. Ethnic and religious minorities find themselves inadequately represented in high level government committees. The provincial council system that ensured ethnic and minority representation at the provincial level continues to be in abeyance.

Beyond IMF

The significance of addressing governance issues is not only relevant to the IMF agreement. It is also important in accessing tariff concessions from the European Union. The GSP Plus tariff concession given by the EU enables Sri Lankan exports to be sold at lower prices and win markets in Europe. For an export dependent economy, this is critical. Loss of such concessions would directly affect employment in key sectors such as apparel. The government needs to address longstanding EU concerns about the protection of human rights and labour rights in the country. The EU has, for several years, linked the continuation of GSP Plus to compliance with international conventions. This includes the condition that the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) be brought into line with international standards. The government’s alternative in the form of the draft Protection of the State from Terrorism Act (PTSA) is less abusive on paper but is wider in scope and retains the core features of the PTA.

Governance and social justice factors cannot be ignored or downplayed in the pursuit of economic development. If Sri Lanka is to break out of its cycle of crisis and bailout, it must internalise the fact that good governance which promotes social justice and more fairly distributes the costs and fruits of development is the foundation on which durable economic growth is built. Without it, stabilisation will remain fragile, poverty will remain high, and the promise of 7 to 8 percent growth will remain elusive. The implementation of governance reforms will also have a positive effect through the creative mechanism of governance linked bonds, an innovation of the present IMF agreement.

The Sri Lankan think tank Verité Research played an important role in the development of governance linked bonds. They reduce the rate of interest payable by the government on outstanding debt on the basis that better governance leads to a reduction in risk for those who have lent their money to Sri Lanka. This is a direct financial reward for governance reform. The present IMF programme offers an opportunity not only to stabilise the economy but to strengthen the institutions that underpin it. That opportunity needs to be taken. Without it, the country cannot attract investment, expand exports and move towards shared prosperity and to a 7-8 percent growth rate that can lift the country out of its debt trap.

by Jehan Perera