Sri Lanka’s Temple Trees to accommodate MICE events
The Morning: The Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB) is to open the 4,000-seater hall in the Prime Minister’s residence, Temple Trees, for meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE), SLCB Chairperson Dheera Hettiarachchi told The Daily Morning Business on 23 July.
“We recently visited the Temple Trees, which has a seating capacity of 4,000 seats, and has not been promoted as a venue for MICE events. It has been politically kept from being open for the use of the public, and this can be used for the MICE industry events as well,” Hettiarachchi said, speaking on the sidelines of the media conference held for unveiling the Sri Lanka MICE Expo 2025.
He added that the SLCB acknowledges that the existing infrastructure within the island is not on par with globally recognised standards for MICE hosting venues, wherein larger seating capacities, accommodation and leisure are facilitated within close quarters, for the use of visiting business groups.
“You need to have specific facilities when it comes to convention centres. If you visit Dubai, you will get a certain number of convention centres connected with break-out rooms and other seating and exhibition areas. There is a lack of convention centres in Sri Lanka.”
For scale, Sri Lanka’s largest recognised standard venue, the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH), has a seating capacity of 1,600 seats, with 640 located within the gallery and 960 in the balcony.
“BMICH and other places we currently promote are very conventional types of venues.”
Hettiarachchi then added that the Magam Ruhunupura International Convention Centre (MRICC), located in Hambantota, and Jaffna Thiruvalluvar Cultural Centre are venues that have not been utilised enough by the industry, due to a lack of promotion.
“The MRICC is a good opportunity, and it is not utilised now, even the Jaffna Cultural Centre. We are in discussion with the UDA to revive the MRICC.”
Sri Lanka is expecting to receive three million tourists in 2025 and has so far seen 1.1 million tourist arrivals for the year, at the beginning of July.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s steadily growing tourism industry is looking at witnessing further growth with the many initiatives undertaken by the country’s tourism authorities. Among the initiatives undertaken by the local tourism authorities are promotional campaigns in key potential tourist source markets and the expansion of tourism concepts in the country that are being promoted to attract foreign travelers. MICE tourism is one of the key concepts that are being promoted by Sri Lanka given its strategic positioning in the Indian Ocean, the strong trade ties with many foreign countries as well as the recognition of the country as a must visit tourist destination. All these developments have expanded the business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry and related sectors. These opportunities include the development of infrastructure and supplementary infrastructure facilities required by the tourism industry to meet the increasing demand as well as to accommodate the expanding tourist concepts. Given the increasing business potential in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry and related sectors, foreign businesses/investors could confidently explore the expanding opportunities while also looking at further expanding operations through local collaborations.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20250804/Z_5 |