More than 100 buyers at Sri Lanka’s biggest MICE Expo
View(s):Sri Lanka pulled out all stops for Sri Lanka MICE Expo 2025 – it’s biggest ever – on September 22-26, inviting foreign buyers to look at the country as an attractive destination for a whole gamut of business activity, meetings and weddings.
At a late night dinner on Monday, Buddhika Hewawasam, chairman of state-run Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau said that they were moving away from generic tourism in favour of high-end tourism. “We want tourism numbers to grow but at the same time we want them to spend more,” he said, adding that this is where MICE can be a game changer as Sri Lanka is a fresh destination and people might be bored with the usual destinations that attract MICE travellers.
Opening the inaugural session on Tuesday in Colombo, Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya extolled the island nation’s many attractions saying that while tourism is Sri Lanka’s most vital sector, within that MICE has emerged has a high-value proposition.
More than 100 buyers from 30 countries including India, Spain, China, Germany, France, Singapore, Bangladesh, Japan, Malaysia, the UK, Russia and the Philippines attended B2B meetings in Colombo on Tuesday and thereafter visited the scenic locations of the country.
This was the biggest-ever gathering of foreign buyers with Sri Lanka hoping to increase MICE travel to 20 per cent of the total tourist arrivals from a current 10-12 per cent. Sri Lanka is hoping to reach 2.6 million tourist arrivals this year.
Yuya Nagano from Kuoni Tumlare Japan said there is a lot of interest from Japan and MICE can be a winning proposition but emphasised the need for more flights between the two countries as flights by the national carrier SriLankan Airlines flights were always fully booked.
Vishal Joshi from Spark Destinations, New Delhi said Sri Lanka definitely had great potential as a MICE venue particularly for Indian travellers as Sri Lanka, in many ways, is similar to South India, the food is similar, the culture is the same (Tamil communities from both countries). India and Sri Lanka are like two sides of a coin. The cost is also reasonable when compared with European destinations. “I have suggested that the Indian rupee – because India is Sri Lanka’s biggest tourism source market – should be freely tradable in Sri Lanka,” he added.
A Singapore buyer said most people travel to Thailand, Japan and Korea for business meetings and Sri Lanka is a new kid on the block. “Sri Lanka needs to do a lot of promotions in Singapore to position the country as a MICE destination,” he said.
UK buyer Yusuf Sedat from Global Mice Travel Ltd, UK felt this was the most appropriate time to promote Sri Lanka as a travel destination as the message in India is that, that country is focusing more on domestic tourism than foreign tourists. “It would help if this is a visa-free destination although I am told this would happen in October,” he added.
Germany buyer Cecilia Lukaszewsky, founder and CEO of Luka Mor said her philosophy for her clients is to reset-renew-and-restore. “I have been looking at organising a group of 50-100 doctors who would be able to relax, rejuvenate and refresh from a busy work schedule and Sri Lanka is now on my bucket list. We want our clients to connect with the people, culture and food and looking for luxury accommodation and high quality of local food,” she said.
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