Sri Lanka Tourism launched its global tourism campaign in India to attract more tourists from its neighbouring country. The Sri Lankan delegation including the tourism minister and consul general launched the tourism campaign in Mumbai on Friday among the leading tour operators and travel agents from the country.
Amid the controversy with Maldives, Indian tourists are now diverting to other coastal tourist destinations nearby and Sri Lanka has already started benefitting from it. While Sri Lanka has surpassed Maldives in the number of tourists for the first time, Indians occupy the largest part of these tourists. While the current tourism trend benefits Sri Lanka, the island country is aiming at record-breaking tourism in 2024. To meet this aim, Sri Lanka tourism has launched its global tourism campaign Sri Lanka: You will come back for more, to highlight the fact that 33 percent of tourists visiting Sri Lanka visit the country again.
20 percent of tourists in Sri Lanka are Indians
Currently over 20 percent of tourists in Sri Lanka are Indians and Sri Lanka plans on attracting ten percent of 50 million Indians that fly out of India every year. Dr. Velson Vethody, Consul General of Sri Lanka in Mumbai said, “Sri Lanka has rich heritage, scenic beauty, green landscapes and its people are known for their simplicity and hospitality. Sri Lanka is an ideal tourism destination in today’s world.”
Apart from family, couple and spiritual tourism, Sri Lanka is aiming at attracting more tourists for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibition (MICE) purposes. Thisum Jayasuriya, Chairman, Sri Lanka Convention Bureau presented the list of potential destinations for MICE tourism and also announced opening of upcoming venues and hotels for increasing number of tourists.
Sri Lanka is seeing unprecedented increase in tourism with 106 percent year-on-year increase in the tourists visiting the country with around 9 thousand tourists flying in everyday. Suman Udhayakumaran, Manager, Sri Lankan Airlines also discussed about the 95 flights that connect Sri Lanka with nine countries of India. Mumbai and Colombo are connected with two flights daily.
Harin Fernando, Minister of Tourism, Sri Lanka, who was also present at the Mumbai event said, “We have faced a lot of troubles due to political and economic crisis but India has always been a bigger brother to us. Sri Lanka and India has a lot in common when it comes to history and culinary. We requests more Indians to visit Sri Lanka and I am sure they will feel being at home.”
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