Category: Tourism

July 19, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s main opposition has slammed proposed tax breaks for casinos to be operated by James Packer’s Australia based Crown group and said the plans will be opposed in parliament.De Silva said Macao made 43 billion dollars in gaming with a tax close to 40 percent of casino revenues.Macao however […]

July 19, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Lake Leisure Holdings (Pvt) Ltd, a gaming resort joint venture with Australia’s Crown group is being given sweeping tax breaks according to a government notice.Sri Lanka is expecting to boost up market tourists with gaming resorts which analysts say will push up city hotel rates, but other support […]

July 19, 2013 (LBO) – Profits from gaming at a large resort to be built by John Keells Holdings in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo will be charged corporate taxed at “applicable rates”, but rents would be exempt, a government notice said. A similar resort in Colombo, Lake Leisure Holdings, in a joint venture between Australia’s […]

July 17, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals rose 12.8 percent to 73,628 in June 2013 from a year earlier, with half year arrivals up 13.1 percent to 512,281, data from the state tourism promotion office showed. South Asian visitors were up 9.6 percent to 21,915 with Maldives up 29.4 percent to 5,454, Pakistan […]

July 11, 2013 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s hotels are overcharging for rooms in an attempt to cash in on growing visitor numbers after a decades-long war, a minister said Thursday.Investment Promotion Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said some hotels had hiked up room rates 10-fold since the end of the war in 2009 without improving service. […]

July 08, 2013 (LBO) – A private equity raisin for four greenfield hotels is underway with local investors and a foreign investor coming on board, but the matching investor needs with a new project has been challenging, an official said.“While the equity investor is looking at us, we are also looking at them,” Jetwing chief […]

July 06, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s gaming industry could generate 900 million US dollars a year with only two 500-room integrated resorts, upping rates of city hotels, but more support facilities are needed, a research report has said.A game changing 900,000 tourists could be added within four years to Sri Lanka’s current tourist arrivals […]

June 20, 2013 (LBO) – About 23 percent of domestic holidaymakers in Sri Lanka are booking hotels online and up to 85 percent were considering internet booking for their next holiday, according to survey on travel planning.BQu Services, an online marketing and research firm that conducted the survey said 85 percent of holidaymakers said they […]

June 20, 2013 (LBO) – EoN Resorts (Pvt) Ltd, a Maldives-based resorts developer has applied to build a 170 million US dollar luxury hotel in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, the state information office said. It will also have a 150,000 square feet shopping mall and a 2000 square feet food court. The cabinet of ministers […]

June 17, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals rose 21 percent to 70,026 in May 2013 from a year earlier, with a recovery in the Indian market and Western Europe growing strongly, official data shows.South Asia rose 14.4 percent to 23,819. India, Sri Lanka’s largest generating market rose 8.5 percent to 17,233 and Maldives […]

June 12, 2013 (LBO) – Investment approval for Australian magnate James Packer’s Crown group for a joint venture mixed development in Sri Lanka is being finalized and details will be presented parliament soon, investment minister Lakshman Abeywardena said.If the promoters wish to shift a casino to the project he said that was between the partners […]

June 11, 2013 (LBO) – Applicants from Sri Lanka who had recently travelled to some North American, European and Pacific countries could apply for a fast track visa, the UK High Commission (embassy) in Colombo said. From June 24, Sri Lankans who had travelled “without difficulty” to the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand or […]