Over 70 travel companies from Sri Lanka will participate in the World Tourism Market(WTM) that will begin on Monday (6) at EXCEL exhibition centre.
Director Marketing Sri Lanka Tourism, Dushan Wickramasuriya said that this year too Sri Lankan companies would be housed in a large pavilion and the opening ceremony would be held at 10 30 a.m. with the presence of Minister of Tourism, Harin Fernando, Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Saroja Sirisena and industry stakeholders. SriLankan Airlines would be represented at the event with their team based in London. Wickramasuriya said that London is a very important market since they are currently the number three source market for Sri Lankan after India and Russia. Last month the UK had 8,454 arrivals accounting to 8% total arrivals. Up to October nearly 100,000 tourists have arrived in Sri Lanka from the UK.
He said that another advantage is that with stronger pound their spending power is high hence in addition to volume UK is also generating high spenders. Good air connectivity with SriLankan too operating daily flights to Colombo is another plus point for positioning Sri Lanka as a preferred destination to them. He said through WTM they can also reach out to the entire Europe as well.
The ongoing tension in the world has also helped to move them towards Asia. The Sri Lankan Press conference will be held on day two (Tuesday) and this also gives an opportunity to showcase Sri Lanka to the international media.
Sri Lanka’s new destination campaign too would be launched from the WTM. For 42 years, WTM has been the most influential travel industry exhibition and this year the three day event will attract 38,500 attendees from 184 countries and there will be 3,500 stalls. In addition 72 conference sessions too would be held including a Ministerial summit which would be attended by Minister Harin Fernando.
Sri Lanka Travel Feneteko