Two bombed hotels shut, Army briefs on security

Two of the three luxury hotels in Colombo targeted by suicide bombers on Easter Sunday have shut down while a third has stopped accepting fresh bookings.

At the same time, the Army had begun to give a security briefing to all Colombo and some suburban hotels in the wake of the Sunday bombings that killed 321 people and wounded more than 500.

Kishu Gomes, Chairman of both the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, said they got Army experts to brief the hotels on what measures the government has so far taken and what will be done in the future.

"The hotel staff were also educated on how they should make powerful observations in order to be able to read suspicious movements," the Daily Mirror quoted him as saying. "A lot of technical details were shared with them."

Gomes said two of the three hotels which came under terror attack were closed.

"The Kingsbury and Shangri-La are closed. Kingsbury on Sunday announced that they will be closed for one week and Shangri-La closed down on Monday until further notice. Cinnamon Grand is in operation ... but will not be entertaining fresh bookings," he said.

--IANS

mr/soni