Category: Tourism

Dec 06, 2011 (LBO) – The Lighthouse Hotel in southern Sri Lanka said it plans to expand by adding more rooms and new food and beverage outlets amid a boom in tourist arrivals. The company, whose hotel is on the southern coast, said in a stock exchange filing it will build 15-20 rooms, a restaurant, […]

Dec 05, 2011 (LBO) – A tourist ‘shopping precinct’ has been built in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo at the premises of a hospital in dating back to the Dutch colonial period. The Dutch hospital was opened by economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa and his brother defence secretary Gothabhaya Rajapaksa who also oversees the country’s urban […]

HANOI, Dec (Asia Pulse) – Some 5.3 million foreign visitors came to Vietnam in the first 11 months of 2011, up 15.9 per cent year-on-year, and meeting the country’s tourism target, according to the Vietnam General Statistics Office. Tourism, including domestic, earned an estimated VND110 trillion (US$5.2 billion) or 4.5 per cent of the nation’s […]

Dec 02, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has been among the best destinations to visit in 2012 National Geographic Traveler, by US-based magazine, which has focused on the island’s hill country. Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals have been rising since the end of a 30-year war in 2009. “Nuwara Eliya is a colonial-era resort town in […]

Dec 01, 2011 (LBO) – An on-arrival visa facility for many countries will continue till March 2012 and will not be discontinued by the end of December 2011, due to teething problems in an electronic approval system, a media report said. Citizens of South Asian nations will be able to get the visa for 10 […]

Dec 01, 2011 (LBO) – India’s ITC Ltd, franchisee for US-based Sheraton leisure group will invest 300 million US dollars in Sri Lanka’s on a beachfront in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, minister Keheliya Rambukwelle said. But the firm has now been offered alternative land, reports said. The mixed development project will be built on five […]

Nov 27, 2011 (LBO) – Thailand’s Minor International is to build more hotels in Sri Lanka in partnership with the island’s Hemas group and plans to re-open two existing properties after refurbishment and rebranding, officials said. Minor International’s Rajakarier said the Kani Lanka hotel in Kalutara, 80 percent owned by Minor and the balance by […]

Nov 25, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is in talks to with India’s ITC Ltd a franchisee of Starwood Hotels and Resorts’ Sheraton brand to build a 450 million US dollar hotel in a beachfront in the capital Colombo, a media report said. Reuters, a new agency quoted Sri Lanka’s Treasury Secretary as saying that […]

Nov 25, 2011 (LBO) – Thailand’s Minor International is to build a 160-room beach hotel on Sri Lanka’s south-west coast in a partnership with the island’s Hemas Holdings group at a cost of 25 million US dollars. Abbas Esufally, group director of Hemas Holdings, said Minor group which operates hotels under the Avani and Anantara […]

Nov 24, 2011 (LBO) – Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka have been growing faster than expected and the island expects to achieve its original target of attracting 750,000 tourists for the 2011 year later on Thursday. In the nine months to September 2011, total arrivals rose 34.3 percent to 598,006, official data showed. Tourist arrivals […]

Nov 23, 2011 (LBO) – Lankem Ceylon said it bought control of Galle Fort Hotel, a boutique hotel in Sri Lankan’s southern port town of Galle, for 772 million rupees. Sri Lanka is experiencing a boom in tourism with the end of the island’s 30-year ethnic war in 2009. The acquisition of 100 percent of […]

Nov 22, 2011 (LBO) – China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) a firm active in several Chinese financed project in Sri Lanka is looking to build a hotel in Hambatota in the south of the island, a media report said. Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Today newspaper said CHEC had also looked at lakefront land in Colombo. “They […]