Sri Lanka Tourism plans major promotions for H1 this year
The Morning: The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) has revealed ambitious plans to promote Sri Lankan tourism, involving road shows in India, China, and several European countries.
Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Marketing Director Dushan Wickramasuriya revealed that plans were underway for the SLTDA to carry out roadshows in several countries during the first half of 2025.
He revealed that the SLTPB had commenced its promotional activities from the beginning of January. Accordingly, he stated that the bureau had obtained various endorsements in relation to Sri Lankan tourism; hosted media, influencers, and bloggers from all over the world; and become involved in a number of travel fairs.
Commenting on the effectiveness of the tourism promotional campaign, Wickramasuriya said: “Our numbers are looking good. We reached the two million tourist arrivals mark in 2024. I believe we finished at 2,053,000. The momentum continues and we have a target of three million arrivals for 2025, which we are working towards.”
He further revealed that Sri Lanka would be participating in international tourism travel fairs such as ITB Berlin, South Asia’s Travel and Tourism Exchange (SATTE) and Outbound Travel Mart (OTM) in India, and Fitur in Spain.
Wickramasuriya also pointed out that the intention behind participating in these trade fairs was to create a platform for the local tourism industry to have Business-to-Business (B2B) meetings with their foreign counterparts.
Furthermore, speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, SLTDA and SLTPB Chairman Buddhika Hewawasam also revealed that they were currently formulating the national branding campaign, which would be finalised within a week’s time.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is on a growth path while becoming a key revenue generator to the country. The industry is showing great potential for growth with Sri Lanka continuing to be identified as a must visit tourist destination. The local tourism authorities focus on carrying out promotional campaigns in key tourist source markets as well as new source markets would also give a further impetus to Sri Lanka’s tourism industry. The ongoing growth in the tourism industry has opened a host of new business/investment opportunities covering several sectors in the industry. The increasing business/investment opportunities range from the development of infrastructure and supplementary infrastructure facilities to meet the growing demand with the increasing tourist arrivals as well as the expansion of tourism concepts in the country. There are also emerging opportunities in the leisure and hospitality sectors as well. The interest shown by international leisure and hospitality brands to enter Sri Lanka’s tourism industry and the expansion programmes undertaken by local businesses are all indicative of the growing business potential in the industry. All these developments indicate that Sri Lanka’s tourism industry presents many lucrative business/investment opportunities for foreign businesses/investors.
Article Code : | VBS/AT/20250122/Z_2 |