Hambantota biz leaders visit WTM 2010 in London

Twenty members along with Director General Azmi Thassim of the Hambantota District Chamber of Commerce (HDCC) visited the World Travel Market (WTM) tourism event in London on 9 November.

This was the fifth successive year that an HDCC has visited WTM to maintain awareness of the ‘Deep South’ campaign which was introduced to the Travel World in 2006. The visit presented an opportunity to meet Sri Lankan companies and also to promote the Southern Region of Sri Lanka as a wonderful tourist destination for their clients.

The exposure to the other country pavilions and their products was a real benefit in enhancing participants’ knowledge of current trends and the expectations of today’s international traveller and transferring that knowledge to the tourism stakeholders in the district is a significant way to improve our own product and its ability to compete with other destinations.

The intention of HDCC is to use Tourism as a vehicle for the local community to promote income generating activities, which in turn will improve the well being of the local people whilst at the same time establishing Hambantota as a popular tourist destination.

HDCC is doing its utmost to keep the identity of ‘Deep South’ prominent in the travel world, by taking every opportunity to highlight the wealth of beauty, culture, history and splendour of the district at international promotional events such as WTM.