By Chathura Weerasekara

Sri Lankan industries suffered millions in losses due to the volcanic eruption in Southern Iceland. According to the views of some leading Sri Lankan industrialists, the eruption has had both direct and indirect impacts on the local economy.
Industries such as tourism, international trade and export faced the largest blow as there were many cancellations of tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka.
The authorities are yet unable to give exact figures for losses, as the impact of the volcano is not yet at end. The private sector is still trying to assess the scale of the loss.
Sri Lankan Airlines suffered the largest loss with many cancellations and delays. As of April 21, 12 flights out of Colombo to London, Paris and Frankfurt had been cancelled, within 6 days. The number of flights to arrive in Colombo during this period are still being assessed. Sri Lankan airlines authorities roughly figure out the total loss as 8000 USD per day, which continued for six consecutive days. However, this figure is marginal when compared with the total of nearly 1.7 billion USD loss suffered by the airline industry of the world during this period.
In Sri Lanka alone, 5500 passengers travelling out of Colombo were affected. There was an increase in the number of people travelling from Europe to Sri Lanka during the New Year season. However, the International Air Transport Association estimates that around 1.2 million people were affected per day during the airspace closure during the peak of the volcanic eruption.
The Amaya Resorts group experienced a similar situation. “Instead of an increased number of tourists during the new year season, there had been many cancellations of arrivals,” the authorities stated. Some groups who were to arrive in Sri Lanka from Europe had to cancel their flights due to the non-availability of flights; and the reservations of some 250 rooms in their hotels had been cancelled, costing millions in losses to both direct and indirect tourism in Sri Lanka.