Harin confirms Qatar Airways’ increase in flights to SL during FIFA World Cup

Saturday, 15 October 2022 00:11 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Qatar Airways will increase its flight frequency to Colombo during the FIFA World Cup 2022, to woo visitors to Sri Lanka during non-match days, Tourism Minister Harin Fernando confirmed yesterday.

Taking to Twitter, he thanked Qatar Airways for extending support to Sri Lanka’s out-of-the-box efforts to boost arrivals by attracting a fraction of the FIFA World Cup 2022 football fans.

Qatar Airways is also the FIFA World Cup 2022 official airline partner.

In addition, Flydubai has also assured support to the promotional packages Sri Lanka Tourism is working on.

Sri Lanka Tourism is ramping up efforts to capture a sizeable fraction of the over 1.2 million football fans who will attend the World Cup matches from 20 November to 18 December, in its ‘FIFA Zone’ in Negombo.

“Qatar has only 40,000 rooms and the prices of the accommodation facilities have soared with the high demand. Thus, Sri Lanka has a great opportunity to capture a fraction of those football fans during the four to five-day break between matches. The plan is most viable because of the air connectivity, affordability and entertainment freedom in Sri Lanka,” he said at a recent media briefing.

Sri Lanka was also featured in an event held in Doha, Qatar this week coinciding with the FIFA World Cup 2022. The Minister Fernando extended his appreciation to High Commission for the efforts taken to feature Sri Lanka.