Sri Lanka Tourism on full show at ITB Berlin

Friday, 8 March 2013 00:56 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The 47th edition of International Travel Bourse (ITB), the key travel and trade exhibition among the largest travel exhibitions in the world, is being held at Berlin, Germany, from 6 to 10 March 2013.

Representing Sri Lanka, 160 representatives from 64 travel and tourism agencies will participate in this event, making this event feature the largest number of participants ever from Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka delegation to Berlin is led by Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Managing Director Rumy Jauffer.

Since SLTPB under the leadership of Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa has identified Germany as a key market among the traditional tourist markets of Sri Lanka, actions have been taken to set up an attractive stall in the ITB, inclusive of all the tourism products related to the German market.

In this regard, special focus has been given to promote Sri Lankan Ayurvedic products to the lucrative German market. With this view, the Siddhalepa Group is featuring a special team to provide treatments to participants.

Under the guidance of Sri Lanka Tourism Chairman Bashwara Gunarathna, the promotional campaigns in ITB 2013 will focus on promoting Sri Lankan Ayurvedic products, Sri Lankan gems, beaches and heritage to German tourists.

A number of promotional campaigns of this nature have also been scheduled for implementation in the future targeting the tourism market of Germany, in order to attract more tourists to Sri Lanka in the coming years.

Meanwhile, SLTPB also took steps to arrange business meetings, exclusive media interviews, an investment forum and a consumer awareness campaign during this promotional campaign. Also, as on previous occasions, steps will be taken to reward tour operators who direct the largest number of tourists to Sri Lanka and the best journalist who writes articles about Sri Lanka in 2013 .

With over 170,000 visitors, among these 113,000 trade visitors, and 11,000 represented companies from 100 countries, ITB Berlin is the leading B2B platform of all tourism industry offers.

SLTPB anticipates a turnout of 90,000 tourists from Germany to visit Sri Lanka this year. In 2016, however, with the Government’s ambition to achieve 2.5 million tourist arrivals, the total expectation of tourists from Germany will amount to 200,000.