Sri Lankan tourism ready to roll out the welcome mat again, from Galle Fort to tea estates to southern mountains and surfing beaches
- A visit to Galle Fort in the southwest reveals that resorts such as Amangalla, small businesses and tour operators are optimistic about the future
- The pandemic, followed by political unrest, took the country off the tourist map, but normality has resumed and Sri Lanka is ready to receive visitors
“You are standing on 400 years of history,” says Nalin Wasantha, a butler at the luxury resort Amangalla, as we stand in a large living area with polished teak floors, a small cabinet bar, and colonial-era teak armchairs with rest panels and caned seats.
Built as a military headquarters by the island’s Dutch colonial rulers in the 17th century and converted into the Oriental Hotel in 1863, Amangalla, one of two Sri Lankan hotels run by the resort chain Aman, is in Galle Fort, 150km (93 miles) south of the nation’s capital, Colombo.
Wasantha, who’s been working there for 15 years, leads the way into the resort’s small museum, which contains black-and-white photographs, guest review books and cutlery and crockery used during the colonial era. Two signs bearing the words New Oriental Hotel, the name of the hotel after a 1900 change of ownership, hang on the wall.
When the Oriental Hotel first opened, it was needed; Galle Fort would sometimes be thronged by as many as 700 foreign passengers from the ships that would put in at Galle Harbour as they made their way across the Indian Ocean.
When I visit, there are far fewer visitors at the World Heritage site; the Amangalla has only six other guests occupying its 32 rooms.
“Before the pandemic, we were fully booked almost every day,” Wasantha says.
