Category: Tourism

Aug 14, 2008 (LBO) – A beach festival in Sri Lanka’s Hikkaduwa coastal tourist town has filled up hotels to full capacity and set the stage for an annual event that will attract young people from the region, the island’s tourism authorities said. Managing Director of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau Dileep Mudadeniya says more […]

July 16, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is scrambling to head off an imminent travel warning from Japan, in a bid to save the struggling tourism industry from a new blow, a top official said.Tourism secretary George Michael said Sri Lanka has learned of an imminent travel warning from Japan and tourism minister Milinda Moragoda […]

July 11, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka attracted fewer holidaymakers in June, the island’s main tourism promotion authority said Friday, blaming the drop in the number of visitors on the country’s ongoing ethnic conflict. Arrivals in June fell 9.3 percent to 27,960 from 30,810 reported a year earlier and totalled 224,363 in the first half […]

June 30, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Aitken Spence conglomerate has won an award for the best water villas in the Maldivian atolls, the company said. Aitken Spence’s Adaaran ˜Prestige’ Water Villas in the Maldives won the ˜Maldives Leading Water Villas’ award at the World Travel Awards Asia and Indian Ocean Ceremony held in Shanghai. […]

June 30, 2008 (LBO) – The World Bank has agreed to provide funds to the Sri Lankan government for a tourism initiative among small entrepreneurs and rural communities, the Ministry of Tourism said in a statement. The assurance of support came after talks by Tourism Minister Milinda Moragoda with Wold Bank officials in Washington DC, […]

June 13, 2008 (LBO) – Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka rose a steep 18.5 percent in May against a sharp fall last year but cumulative figures were little changed amidst bad publicity from an internal conflict, the latest official data showed. The number of arrivals increased by 1.2 percent to 196,403 for the first five […]

June 13, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan celco Dialog, a unit of Telekom Malaysia said it had partnered with AeroMobile to provide in-flight mobile communications, becoming the first in the region to do so. “Dialog Telekom has achieved the distinction of being the first operator in the region to partner with AeroMobile..,” the company said […]

June 09, 2008 (LBO) – The new owners of Sri Lanka’s Continental Hotel have taken board control and sought approval from tourism authorities to sell rooms at lower rates, a media report said. Hotel Services (Ceylon) Ltd, which owns the Continental Hotel in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, was sold by former owner U K […]

June 05, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is hosting a workshop and familiarization tour for more than 100 German travel agents in a bid to lure more visitors, the island’s tourist promotion office said. The program will increase awareness about the Sri Lanka among German travel agents and motivate them to sell and promote the […]

June 04, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tourist promotion office had given a million rupees to re-build an old tourist hotel that was damaged in a Tamil Tiger bomb blast, the ministry of tourism said. The board of directors of Sri Lanka’s tourism promotion bureau had recently approved the request to help Hotel Nippon, the […]

May 28, 2008 (AFP) – The Indian Ocean island of the Maldives plans to open 11 new islands to foreign investors to develop upmarket tourist resorts, an official said Wednesday.The government is also building 10 new regional airports to compliment the booming resort development and allow locals to commute quickly between the chain of 1,192 […]

May 23, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s April tourist arrivals dropped ten percent to 29,747 compared to the same period last year, despite a surge in visitors from the Middle East, a market where the island is being promoted in a new campaign, the Tourist Board said. The highest drop in arrivals of twenty five […]