Sri Lanka raising its profile at major tourism event

The World Travel Market (WTM), which will open its sessions here tomorrow, is the first major travel promotion under the newly appointed Sri Lanka Tourism Promotional Bureau (SLTPB).

WTM comes alive at the London ExCel Exhibition Centre from November 12 to 15. Sri Lanka is planning to maximize its promotion with the country being newly positioned as the Tourism Earth Lung at the World Tourism Day in Bentota recently.

According to the Lanka Tourism Authority (SLTA), the industry is aiming to use the opportunity at WTM to provide a correct image of the country. The 127-strong Sri Lankan delegation taking part comes from 45 private sector companies including travel agencies and leisure industry companies.

Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourism Authority Renton de Alwis told The Sunday Times FT that ‘Green Globe’ will be the main theme for this year’s WTM. ‘There is a huge movement and following in UK for ‘Climate Change and Global Warming’. With our positioning as a Tourism Earth Lung, we hope to boost this theme through all means possible,” he said.

Sri Lanka is one of the few countries to push for the green globe theme in world tourism and is now addressing its responsibility as a global citizen. ‘Challenging the long-haul air travel and tourism face within the climate change scenario, Sri Lanka will seek to establish codes of practice within the tourism industry, under the theme ‘Sri Lanka- Tourism Earth Lung’ that will offset CO2 emissions. There is a ‘travel guilt’ in UK against climate change and Global Warming and they call long-haul air travel and owning big cars a sin,” De Alwis explained.

Tourism Minister Milinda Moragaoda will be at the World Tourism Ministerial meeting on November 13 at WTM on Climate Change and Green theme for tourism. WTM is the platform for most countries to portray the unique feature of respective countries and in this perspective Sri Lanka Tourism too will be running a major promotional campaign.

“But there won’t be on unnecessary spending on the campaign this year. We will stick to our goals and try and achieve it with limited resources,” said Dilip Mudadeniya, Head of Marketing and Promotions of the Tourism Promotional Bureau of SLTA.

The Sri Lankan Pavillion this year will be in line with the theme ‘Tourism Earth Lung’. ‘Makara Thorana’, which is the West doorway of Dalada Maligawa, was the attraction at the entrance to the Sri Lanka Pavilion last year.

As this is the largest fair in the UK and the second largest in the world, it has direct and indirect results in generating positive results in this market.WTM 2006 was attended by 50,000 travel Industry professionals representing over 202 countries andregions. Independent research shows that over GBP 24 billion worth of business has been conducted at this event.