Russians to promote Lankan tourism

By Bandula Sirimanna

Sri Lanka Tourist Board is to appoint a destination representative company in Russia soon to capture a sizable share of the ever increasing Russian outbound tourist market.

A senior board official told The Sunday Times FT that tenders have been called for to select a suitable company to handle tourist promotion activities on behalf of SLTB.

While 2007 recorded a slump in tourism, the number of Russian tourists rose by 70.6 percent to 13,621, compared to 7,985 in 2006.

“The SLTB is confident the industry will be able to weather the storm and continue to attract more visitors from Russia as they are not too concerned about the security situation in the island,” the official said. The new company will begin its tourist promotion campaigns by March this year.

The SLTB official said much efforts woud be laid on improving the quality of the tourism products while focusing on key markets such as India, Middle East, China and Russia that have shown a growth potential this year. Much will be done also to consolidate the conventional markets from Western Europe,” she said.