The Colombo City Tour, the open deck city sightseeing service operated by Ebert Silva Holidays, offers cruise ship passengers calling at the Port of Colombo an interesting insight into the city highlighting its history, culture and other important monuments and sites.
Tours present an exciting overview to Colombo’s promising new developments whilst showcasing the cultural and religious harmony as seen in several places in and around Colombo, depicted by the many religious edifices of various faiths in close proximity to each other.
The open top double deckers of the Colombo City Tour greet the passengers at the relevant pier of the Colombo Port as they disembark from their cruise ship. Tours offer live commentaries in English by professional guides and snacks are given onboard.
Interesting highlights of the city popular among travellers of the Colombo City Tour are the ‘old Colombo’ area, which was once an elite residential area and now the city’s bazaar with the old Town Hall, the busy and narrow streets hustling with wholesale vendors and the striking Red Mosque of the 19th century. The Gangarama Temple and the picturesque Seema Malakaya is also a favourite and is the most visited temple in the city.
The cruise season extends from November to April with approximately 60 cruise calls per year. With Sri Lanka receiving many international endorsements in the recent past as a foremost tourist destination, cruise arrivals have been steadily increasing with the destination now stabilised as a safe and exotic tourist destination in the region. Additional precautionary measures have been undertaken by the Sri Lankan authorities Sri Lanka screening passengers arriving in cruise ships, and taking protection measures.
Several luxury vessels have called at the Port of Colombo since January 2020, including the ‘Sun Princess’ of Princess Cruises, ‘Celebrity Constellation’ of Celebrity Cruises, ‘Queen Mary 2’ of Cunard Lines, ‘Costa Victoria’ and ‘Costa Fortuna’ of Costa Cruises among others. Other well-known cruise liners such as MSC Cruises, P & O Cruises and TUI cruises are due in the months ahead all of which consists of a passenger count of over 2,000 and crew of over 1,000 persons.
The Colombo City Tour offers two tours daily, all seven days of the week with a choice of four different tours which are patronised by both foreign visitors and Sri Lankans. They cover the city limits of Colombo on weekdays and extends to the administrative capital on weekend tours.
Cruise arrivals play a crucial part in the tourism sector as they bring in high spending tourists. More worthy touristic experiences to cruise ship passengers in the city further encourages them to visit Sri Lanka through passenger cruises which in addition to flight arrivals further increases the number of visitors to the island nation.
Sri Lanka Travel Feneteko