Category: Tourism

June 03, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is to call proposals for a luxury hotel near the island’s Bandaranaike International Airport, north of the capital Colombo, to be constructed on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis, a media report said. The airport agency is scrambling to expand capacity at Katunayake after aircraft and passenger movements zoomed following […]

May 21, 2012 (LBO) – Profits at Sri Lanka’s Amaya Leisure, a unit of listed Hayleys group rose 68 percent in the March 2012 quarter as strong tourist arrivals boosted revenues, interim accounts showed. Administrative expenses were kept under check rising only 7 percent to 90. 6 million rupees. The group also has carry forward […]

May 19, 2012 (LBO) – Singapore based Tiger Airways, a budget carrier, said it was kicking off a promotion to Asian destinations in June as it adds Sri Lanka to its network. “Travellers looking for a different holiday in the region will be amazed at what multi-faceted Asia has to offer,” Stewart Adams, managing director […]

May 16, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals rose 9. 0 percent to 65,591 in April this year, which helped raise the number of holidaymakers for the first four months of 2012 to 330,116, official data showed Wednesday. The Eastern European market expanded 42. 9 percent to 26,980 visitors in April this year, helped […]

May 11, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Expolanka Holdings Plc said Friday it had paid 915,000 dollars to buy a 50 percent stake and management control in Akquasun Holidays India Private Limited, a joint venture with Mumbai-based Akquasun Group. Akquasun Holidays India is a business-to-business agency that works with other travel agents, tour operators and […]

May 07, 2012 (LBO) – Profits of Taj Lanka Hotel Plc, a unit of India’s Taj Hotels and Resorts Ltd, plunged 87 percent to just 6.7 million rupees in the March 2012 quarter due to exchange losses from a dollar loan. Taj Lanka’s revenues rose 6 percent to 450 million rupees in the December quarter […]

May 06, 2012 (LBO) – Hotel Developers Ltd, a state-run property where Colombo’s Hilton is housed will go a 45 million US dollar refurbishment, as it gears up to meet competition from spruced up city hotels, a media report said. Hotel Developers was one of the firms that was expropriated by the state through a […]

May 05, 2012 (LBO) – Teoria Investment Company Limited, a Japan based company is investing two million US dollars in a beach resort built by Sri Lanka’s Asia Leisure, which is seeking partners for new hotels, officials said. “We need to raise seven-to-eight million dollars each (for each hotel), to start projects in Galle and […]

May 03, 2012 (LBO) – A new Indian Ocean cruise is due to open this winter, ferrying passengers to Sri Lanka’s main port of Colombo, targeting some 4,000 up market tourists from German speaking countries, officials said. Mooted by FTI Group, a German tour operator, the 206-cabin cruise liner carrying some 400 passengers, will sail […]

May 01, 2012 (LBO) – Foreign visitors continue to tour Sri Lanka’s central regions, despite ongoing religious tensions where Buddhist monks have demanded a 60-year-old mosque be relocated, a tourism industry lobby said. Hakeem alleged that “extremist forces” were trying to stir trouble, to fan religious tensions across the island that is emerging after the […]

May 01, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has completed preliminary work assessing the risks of most frequented tourist sites, as the island beefs up its leisure products to welcome more holidaymakers, officials said. The project was mooted, after an Australian tourist accidently died after walking-off the Hortain Plains in the central mountain regions last year, […]

April 30, 2012 (LBO) – A 75 million US dollar transfer of state beachfront land to India’s ITC is to be wrapped up by May 10, setting the stage for a Sheraton branded hotel in Colombo, Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundera said. The land was earlier to be sold to China’s CATIC on a freehold […]