Sri Lanka, March 29 -- Sri Lanka should urgently focus on increasing female participation in the tourism field or the country will lose its competitive edge to attract global high end travelers, said Director Dilmah Ceylon Tea Company PLC, Malik Fernando.

He opined this at The Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance (SLTA), together with Australia's Market Development Facility (MDF), hosted the 'Women in Tourism: Advocate Engage Achieve' event at Colombo Hilton on Wednesday.

While the global ratio in women participation in the tourism sector is around 40% and in Europe even more in Sri Lanka it's less than 9%. He said that when high end solo female travelers visit Sri Lanka they sometimes hardly see any female staff and this discourages them. This a...