Sri Lanka Tourism and Sri Lankan Airlines will work on joint promotions that include visiting journalist programmes, travel agent familiarization initiatives and Sri Lanka Tourism advertising clips on every flight.

The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau said they have already launched a joint working partnership with promotions in many countries not only on travel trade fairs but joint strategy development.

Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau Chairman Rohantha Athukorala said they tested the working relationship in the Italian market that included a top visiting journalist programme.

The country head for Sri Lankan personally accompanied the delegation given the new strategy implemented in the Italian market.

“Sri Lanka as a destination has taken the high ground in this market and now we are plan in making this a 100,000 visitor source market with a strong Sri Lanka tourism- SriLankan Airlines partnership which included working with the largest tour operator in Italy and a blue chip company in Sri Lanka.

“We have now extended this working partnership to India which is the largest inbound source market for Sri Lanka, targeting 335,000 visitors in 2015, even though the market generates only a 13% in revenue generation, Athukorala. said.

“We will also make this partnership work in japan, France and Germany in the near future not forgetting the all important UK market that accounts for 22% of the revenue generation for the country, he said.