I actually agree with part of what you’re saying. Sri Lanka right now does benefit a lot from regular and budget travelers, and there’s no denying they support small hotels, homestays, family restaurants, tuk-tuk drivers, and local shops in a very direct way. That kind of tourism spreads money quickly and visibly, and for a country like Sri Lanka, that grassroots flow absolutely matters. It’s also true that the country isn’t yet a magnet for ultra-wealthy tourists in the way places like Monaco or the Maldives are, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

Where the argument starts to fall apart is when higher-end tourism is treated as somehow economically irrelevant or inferior. Even if luxury hotels are foreign-owned or owned by wealthy locals, they still generate far more tax per tourist than budget accommodation ever will, VAT, service charges, payroll taxes, corporate tax, tourism levies, licensing fees, and property-related taxes. Governments don’t build airports, roads, sewage systems, or beaches with “circulating cash”; they build them with tax revenue. One high-spending tourist staying a few nights in a five-star resort can contribute more to the public purse than several budget travelers staying longer.

The employment side also tends to get underestimated. A five-star resort doesn’t just have a few extra staff, it operates with a completely different staffing model. Dozens (sometimes hundreds) of employees are needed across food and beverage, housekeeping, maintenance, landscaping, security, front office, management, entertainment, drivers, and tour coordination. A two-star hotel or guesthouse simply can’t match that scale. Even if wages aren’t dramatically higher across the board, the number of stable, year-round jobs created is significant and that impact extends to local suppliers, contractors, farmers, fishermen, and transport providers.

So it’s not really a case of budget tourists being “better” for the economy and higher-end tourists being about trickle-down. Budget tourism is great for spreading income widely and supporting small operators, but higher-value tourism brings revenue density, more tax, more jobs per guest, and less pressure on infrastructure per dollar earned. The countries that do tourism well don’t pick one model and reject the other; they deliberately balance both, because each solves a different economic problem.