Category: Tourism

Feb 05, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is expecting 27 cruise calls in 2013 with ocean liner Queen May 02 leading the way, docking at Colombo on February 04, the island’s tourism promotion office said. Sri Lanka’s tourism promotion office said the liner canned 2,300 tourists from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa […]

Feb 02, 2013 (LBO) – State-run SriLankan Airlines said it launched a booking engine to allow guests to book both hotel accommodation and holidays online through its website. “[W]we place great emphasis on providing our customers with convenient, customised holiday packages,” SriLankan Holidays manager, Gayan Peiris said in a statement. “The booking engine enables them […]

Jan 29, 2013 (LBO) – Occupancy rates at Sri Lanka’s hotels had slipped across star categories in November 2012 from a year earlier, worsening from October despite arrivals going up, official data show. Sri Lanka full year tourist arrivals rose 17.5 percent to 1,005,605 in 2012. The average occupancy rates of hotels tracked by the […]

Jan 26, 2013 (LBO) – Keells Hotels Plc, which has operations in Sri Lanka and the Maldives said net profit for the December 2012 quarter fell 22 percent to 222 million rupees from a year earlier, amid higher interest costs.In the nine months to December Keells Hotels’ Sri Lanka operations lost 117 million rupees, reversing […]

Jan 27, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has been added to a list of 14 Asian countries where popular hotels are ranked annually by TripAdvisor.com, a travel review site, though no hotel in the island made it to the world’s best 25 hotels. Maldives had three hotels in the top 25, Baros Maldives, North Male […]

Jan 17, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Hotel Services (Ceylon) Plc, has sought shareholder approval to increase borrowings after the cost of renovating its ‘The Kingsbury’ branded property escalated.Following design changes which required an additional 600 million rupees the cost escalated to 2.4 billion rupees. The renovation had also involved replacing its older mechanical and […]

Jan 16, 2013 (LBO) – Edge Hotels and Resorts, a new small luxury hotel chain has signed agreements to start two hotels, with four more planned, Sri Lanka’s state investment promotion agency said.Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment, which gives tax breaks to investors did not disclose any investment values for the hotels. The first property […]

Jan 11, 2013 (LBO) – Healing Journey, a leisure sector start-up is offering medical tourism services as Sri Lanka attracts more foreign visitors after the end of a 30-year civil war, officials said.Ceylon Tours managing director Suren Ediriweera says competition from India is high but medical tourists going to India can usually only visit one […]

Jan 11, 2013 (LBO) – Trekurious, a Sri Lankan online travel firm has launched a niche architectural tour involving famed Asian architect Geoffrey Bawa and his legacy of ‘Tropical Modernism’ style. “Channa, of course, is the perfect person to host this tour, having worked closely with Bawa himself and being a highly accomplished and lauded […]

Jan 09, 2012 (LBO) – A Sri Lanka-Australia joint venture hospitality sector training school ready to begin teaching its first intake of students at a 320 million rupee purpose built facility, officials said.The Colombo Academy of Hospitality Management (CAHM) was set up by the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) and Australia’s William Angliss […]

Jan 04, 2013, (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Aitken Spence, said it had dropped plans to build a hotel with Six Senses, an international hotel chain and the Favourite group, a domestic firm.Aitken Spence said in 2010 that is was planning to build a 35 million US dollar resort and spa with beachfront villa on a […]

Dec 31, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Worldlink Travels is building a chain of small luxury hotels with the first 12-roomed property opening in Kandy in the central hills, a media report said. “We see a huge opportunity in the hotel segment hence we are planning to open a chain of small hotels under the […]