Sri Lanka needs more progressive travel itineraries from old fashioned ideas
Recent statistics show, Asia is the market to watch in the growth in the tourism industry with a lot of people travelling daily for business meetings and on vacations. However Sri Lanka is still old fashioned in its ideas and need to change to a more progressive thought process, says Greg O’ Neil President of BCD Travel for Asia Pacific Region.
Greg O' Neil and Minister Ravi Karunanayake
Mr. Neil made this comment to the Business Times on the sidelines of the re-launch of the company with Sharmila Travels and Tours in Colombo recently. He said, “We want to make a change from Sri Lanka being old fashioned and move towards a progressive era and BCD Travel to be the market leader.”
He also noted that, “BCD being a travel management company, our focus is on the safety, security of logistics and data. Out of the top Fortune 100 companies in the world, we manage 35 per cent of the large corporate business travellers. Our role and responsibility is to manage their business meetings, leisure and so on.”
BCD Travel partners with one agent in the country to provide services. “We partnered with Sharmila Travels and Tours because it’s young, innovative and they see the change in opportunities in working with the market in a much different way. Today markets work on commission basis, but we want to get away from them and return back to revenues to the customers. BCD Travel has grown on average of 30 per cent year-on-year,” noted Mr. Neil.
Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake, speaking at the event said, “This is an era where Sri Lanka is moving from being outside the world map and entering the world map. The country being geographically placed close to India and Pakistan, allows it to make close connections.” Sri Lanka has to be dedicated as a hot spot and the best tourist destinations in the world, he added.
BCD Travel Chief Financial Officer, Vikesh Kumar also told the Business Times, “BCD Travel coming into the picture is more towards capturing the corporate market. They have the tools, software, ideas and systems which would help us to operate safe in terms of money and cost. With Sharmila Travels and Tours, BCD Travel has very stringent targets to be met. The company is present in 110 countries, is the world’s largest and the Sri Lankan market will benefit from that.”