Over 160 officials from Sri Lanka will attend WTM London which will be held from tomorrow up to November 6 at Excel Docklands.
This includes a high powered government team led by Minister of Tourism Development, and Wildlife and Christian Religious Affairs, John Amaratunga. Sri Lanka Tourism will use the WTM platform mainly to say ‘Business is as usual’ after 21/4 and to communicate its strong recovery. Sri Lanka will be the spotlight destination during the event.
“Through this premier partnership status, Sri Lanka aims to “win back the popularity for the destination and aggressively promote the diverse tourism we offer,” said Minister Amaratunga.
“The tourism industry is now at a stable position and seeing fast improvements, already rooms are being booked for March for the cricket tours. Some hotels in the south are currently fully booked, this is good not only for hotels but for all the small businesses dependent on tourism. We will be building back our tourism stronger than ever and this particular promotion planned in the UK will create the visibility and drive the number of arrivals from the UK to a level more than what it was.”
Managing Director, SLTPB, Charmarie Maelge said, “We are extremely fortunate to have our celebrity cricketer Kumar Sangakkara to help us launch WTM premier partnership in London by participating in SLTPB organized a massive broadcasters day interview sessions with the WTM.”
“Sangakkara’s invitation to visit Sri Lanka will spread not only in the UK but many other cricketing countries, especially in India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa. In addition to sports broadcasters we worked with a number of lifestyle channels to build consumer awareness,” she said.
SLTPB organised Broadcast Day was held at the Sri Lanka High Commission in London with the High Commissioner Manisha Gunasekara’s attendance and her fullest support and assistance to promote Sri Lanka and was attended by, Reuters TV, Sky Sports News, talk SPORT. Reuters TV will be syndicated in mainstream media distributing the interview to hundreds of TV stations and websites around the world who subscribe to receive their content.
Following the WTM Premier Partnership launch, there have many other interviews scheduled such as BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show talking to Kumar about “tourism in Sri Lanka”, where he gave a passionate interview about tourism in Sri Lanka, BBC Radio 2 has the highest listenership of any UK radio program.