IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/toueco/v22y2016i5p908-927.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An analysis of the issues and prospects facing SriLankan Airlines and its embedded partnership with Sri Lankan tourism

Author

Listed:
  • Lasitha Nagahawatte

    (Saffron Aviation (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Lanka)

  • John F. O’Connell

    (Centre for Air Transport Management, England)

Abstract

The long civil war, which ended in May 2009, poor economic performance and weak travel demand for Sri Lanka all coalesced in hindering the tourism industry. Consequently its aviation industry, which is dominated by the national carrier SriLankan Airlines, faced growing and difficult challenges. However, since 2009 the country has witnessed a boom in tourism, while an unprofitable SriLankan Airlines changed its financial and strategic circumstances by becoming a member of the Oneworld alliance in mid-2014, driven by its regional geography and proximity to India which had strict bilateral traffic rights for international incumbents from the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. This study analyses tourism, economic and passenger data combined with results from a passenger survey and expert interviews in order to identify the critical issues and future prospects of aviation and tourism in Sri Lanka. The authors conclude that its ageing long-haul fleet, together with an inferior economy-class product along with high fuel prices, capacity constraints and poor management practices are the major issues faced by SriLankan Airlines. On the tourism side, uncompetitive hotel rates, unnecessarily high government taxes, visa charges and the lack of international promotion were seen as the principle drawbacks. A survey at Colombo airport revealed that fare is the principle rhetoric for passengers taking SriLankan Airlines, but when they want a wider range of additional and superior attributes they choose foreign carriers.

Suggested Citation

  • Lasitha Nagahawatte & John F. O’Connell, 2016. "An analysis of the issues and prospects facing SriLankan Airlines and its embedded partnership with Sri Lankan tourism," Tourism Economics, , vol. 22(5), pages 908-927, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:22:y:2016:i:5:p:908-927
    DOI: 10.5367/te.2015.0465
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5367/te.2015.0465
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5367/te.2015.0465?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. O′Connell, John F. & Krishnamurthy, Pukezhenthi & Warnock-Smith, David & Lei, Zheng & Miyoshi, Chika, 2013. "An investigation into the core underlying problems of India's airlines," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 160-169.
    2. AfDB AfDB, . "Annual Report 2012," Annual Report, African Development Bank, number 461.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pearson, James & O'Connell, John F. & Pitfield, David & Ryley, Tim, 2015. "The strategic capability of Asian network airlines to compete with low-cost carriers," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 1-10.
    2. Craig Garthwaite & Tal Gross & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2014. "Public Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Employment Lock," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 653-696.
    3. Tarek Roshdy Gebba & Mohamed Gamal Aboelmaged, 2016. "Corporate Governance of UAE Financial Institutions: A Comparative Study between Conventional and Islamic Banks," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 6(5), pages 1-7.
    4. Clarete, Ramon L. & Villamil, Isabela Rosario G., 2015. "Readiness of the Philippine Agriculture and Fisheries Sectors for the 2015 ASEAN Economic Community: A Rapid Appraisal," Research Paper Series DP 2015-43, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    5. Li, Xi & Yu, Biying, 2019. "Peaking CO2 emissions for China's urban passenger transport sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    6. Alleyne, Dillon & Emanuel, Elizabeth & Phillips, Willard, 2013. "An assessment of fiscal and regulatory barriers to the deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Saint Lucia," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38502, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    7. Cristian Pana, 2013. "The National Central Bank’S Management Of Reserve Requirements," Working papers 16, Ecological University of Bucharest, Department of Economics.
    8. Junlakarn, Siripha & Kittner, Noah & Tongsopit, Sopitsuda & Saelim, Supawan, 2021. "A cross-country comparison of compensation mechanisms for distributed photovoltaics in the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    9. McMahon, Rob, 2020. "Co-developing digital inclusion policy and programming with indigenous partners: Interventions from Canada," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 9(2), pages 1-26.
    10. John V. Duca, 2013. "Regionally, Housing Rebound Depends on Jobs, Local Supply Tightness," Annual Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    11. Divya Ravindranath, 2017. "Visa regulations and labour market restrictions: implications for Indian immigrant women in the United States," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 60(2), pages 217-232, June.
    12. LametK.Maika & Kevin Wachira, 2020. "Effects of organizational culture on strategy implementation in water boards in Kenya," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 9(4), pages 15-28, July.
    13. Kanbayashi, Yoji., 2015. "The situation of non-regular public employees in Japan," ILO Working Papers 994861763402676, International Labour Organization.
    14. Jose Cuesta & Jon Jellema & Lucia Ferrone, 2021. "Fiscal Policy, Multidimensional Poverty, and Equity in Uganda: A Child-Lens Analysis," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(3), pages 427-458, June.
    15. Zhang, Zibin & Yang, Wenxin & Ye, Jianliang, 2021. "Why sulfur dioxide emissions decline significantly from coal-fired power plants in China? Evidence from the desulfurated electricity pricing premium program," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PB).
    16. Katherine O. Baer, 2013. "What International Experience Can Tell Us About the Potential Challenges of Administering a U.S. Vat," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 66(2), pages 447-478, June.
    17. Wang, Can & Zheng, Xinzhu & Cai, Wenjia & Gao, Xue & Berrill, Peter, 2017. "Unexpected water impacts of energy-saving measures in the iron and steel sector: Tradeoffs or synergies?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 1119-1127.
    18. Tyler Atkinson & David Luttrell & Harvey Rosenblum, 2013. "How bad was it? The costs and consequences of the 2007–09 financial crisis," Staff Papers, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Jul.
    19. Christine Greenhalgh, 2013. "Science, Technology, Innovation and IP in India: New Directions and Prospects," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2013n37, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    20. Pieter Serneels & Stefan Dercon, 2021. "Aspirations, Poverty, and Education. Evidence from India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(1), pages 163-183, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:22:y:2016:i:5:p:908-927. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.