Sri Lanka Tourism Expo now on at OGF Mall

Tuesday, 16 November 2021 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Sri Lanka Tourism Expo (SLTE) 2021 opened yesterday at the One Galle Face Mall and will continue until Sunday 21 November.

Organised by the Alumni Association of Tourism Economics and Hospitality Management (AATEHM), and the Tourism Study Programs of the Department of Economics, Faculty of Arts, University of Colombo as the Strategic Knowledge Partner, the SLTE-21 partners with One Galle Face Mall and runs parallel to the celebration of UN-WTO World Tourism Day 2021.

The primary objective of the SLTE-2021 is to create a strong platform for tourism stakeholders to get together to synergise collective solutions to uplift the industry despite the downfall caused by the pandemic to the tourism industry.

“We are delighted to team up with the key stakeholders in the tourism industry and One Galle Face, in organising a series of events planned for industry professionals,” said Prof. Suranga Silva of the University of Colombo

In line with the theme of ‘Way forward Sri Lanka Tourism: Be Resilient and Sustainable,’ travel shows, extended industry-policy dialogue forums and culinary fests will be held as some of the prominent events which will showcase the potential of Sri Lanka Tourism, sharing opportunities and providing a platform for attendees to make inroads to recovery and resilience building while capturing the growing tourism market trends in post-COVID global tourism.

The Travel Fair kicked off yesterday, Monday 15 November, and features over 50 stakeholders from the hospitality industry, showcasing their offerings. The Fair will be open to the public until 18 November from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on all days.

The discussion forums will also take place simultaneously from 6:30 p.m. onwards, touching on topics such as survival, recovery, innovative business development, competitiveness and the way forward. All of these are key areas for the tourism industry to be resilient in the face of adversity in order to be sustainable. The sessions will be highly interactive with a wide cross section of industry experts actively sharing valuable insights across multiple domains.

In addition to networking events, there will be a host of interactive programs such as live cooking competitions, cocktail and mocktail competitions by industry professionals and cake decorating and cake structure competitions by professionals which will be conducted from 19 to 21 November. All of these are free of charge and open to the public at the One Galle Face Mall, the venue partner.

As a build up to the SLTE-2021, the International Tourism Research Conference was held on 22 October and the International Tourism Leaders’ Summit was held on 27 September, both of which were virtual events and hosted by the Department of Economics, University of Colombo.