Category: Tourism

Mar 03, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tourist development office says owners of vacant apartments in Colombo will be given a chance to use them for tourism in a bid to expand room capacity in the capital amid a steep increase in tourist arrivals. Sri Lanka tourist development authority chairman Nalaka Godahewa said about 500 […]

Feb 25, 2011 (LBO) – Hong Kong based Shangri-La hotels has looked at two sites including one close to a well-known wild life reserve in southern Sri Lanka to site its second proposed hotel, an official said. Deputy minister for economic development Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene said visiting Shangri-La officials had examined a site close to […]

Feb 21, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Colombo University has started a Master’s program in tourism to cater to the need for highly qualified professionals in the industry which is growing fast after the end of a 30-year war. “Now that the tourism industry is picking up fast there is a need for advanced qualifications […]

February 14, 2011 (AFP) – Police in the Maldives arrested a British man Monday after he caused a bomb scare aboard a SriLankan airlines flight from London that was diverted to the atoll nation, an official said. The flight was heading for Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo but was forced to land in the Maldives where […]

Feb 15, 2011 (LBO) – Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka in January 2011 rose 46.2 percent to 74,197 with Western Europe generating 32,627 and India being the single most important country with 13,786 visitors. Visitors from Western Europe who are important for the country’s beach resorts rose 53.7 percent from a year earlier maintaining the […]

Feb 14, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Aitken Spence Hotels, which also has operations in the Maldives, said net profit for the December quarter was up 30 percent to 272 million rupees, with revenues growing 5. 0 percent 2.0 billion from a year earlier. But operating profits fell 9.0 percent to 351 million during the […]

Feb 08, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Lighthouse Hotel has seen December 2010 quarter profit rise sharply from a year ago amid a tourism boom and has struck a deal with a small boutique hotel on the south coast, its accounts showed. The hotel, in which Sri Lanka’s Jetwing leisure group has increased its controlling […]

Feb 08, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka needs to improve the quality of its tourism product and infrastructure to further increase room rates after a post-war rise in rates made the island look expensive, an equities research report said. The country also needs to improve entertainment and shopping in order to break the seasonality of […]

Feb 07, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will lease 500 acres of land in the east coast to hotel developers on a one-off payment for around 10 billion rupees (90 million US dollars) and the same model is likely to be followed in the north west Kalpitiya area, an official said. Hong Kong based Shangri-La […]

Feb 07, 2011 (LBO) – International luxury hotel chain Six Senses has pulled out of a deal to manage a resort being built on an islet off Sri Lanka’s north-west coast, according to company officials. Shivdasani said another project with Sri Lanka’s Aitken Spence group was going ahead near the southern town of Galle with […]

Feb 07, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Continental Hotel, bought by the Hayleys conglomerate last year, has reduced its losses in the December 2010 quarter which marks the beginning of the peak tourism season, latest results showed. The hotel, the island’s oldest 5-star rated property in the capital Colombo, reduced its loss to 1. 8 […]

Feb 01, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-owned Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation will invest in the fast-growing tourism sector by building a hotel in the island’s southern coast, a senior official said. “We are in the process of finalizing details for land in Hambantota to build a hotel,” Mohan De Alwis, managing director and chief […]