As part of its market outreach initiatives focusing on India, the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) in collaboration with the Consulate General of Sri Lanka in Mumbai and with the participation of representatives of the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO), The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) and SriLankan Airlines, held a highly successful tourism awareness session in Mumbai on 8 January 2026. The event underscored Sri Lanka’s strong tourism performance and reinforced to the Indian travel trade and media that Sri Lanka is prepared to welcome travellers from that country.
Addressing the attendees, Consul General Priyanga Wickramasinghe noted that while welcoming foreign travellers is deeply embedded in the island’s culture and heritage, tourism needs to be understood more broadly and reflectively with more nuanced cultural sensitivity, particularly when it involves neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka and India.
She recalled the cultural connections that bind Sri Lanka and Mumbai such as Sri Lanka’s most iconic modernist painter George Keyt who lived in Mumbai for a lengthy period of time and had his first solo and international exhibition at the Convocation Hall of the University of Bombay in 1947, Anil de Silva who along with well-known Indian writer Mulk Raj Anand and others founded the Mumbai-based cultural magazine Marg initiated in 1946, the establishment in 1943 of India’s earliest and best-known press for scholarly works Asia Publishing House by Sri Lankan businessman P.S. Jayasinghe, and Mumbaiker Ameen Sayani who was synonymous with Radio Ceylon’s most sought-after program Binaca Geetmala transmitted from Colombo for decades since the 1952. The Consul General noted that in this context travel and tourism can be undertaken not merely for the sake of travel, seeing and capturing memories in digital photographs alone, but also with a historical, spatial and temporal consciousness, which will allow travellers to see more and gain more from tourism making for a richer and fuller experience.
SLTPB Chairman Buddhika Hewawasam provided a detailed account of Sri Lanka’s historic tourism performance in 2025 with a total of 2,362,521 international tourists visiting the country surpassing the 2018 all-time record and marking renewed global confidence in Sri Lanka as a preferred destination. President of SLAITO Nalin Jayasundera, Past President of THASL Anura Lokuhetty, and SriLankan Airlines Regional Manager for India, Bangladesh and Nepal Fawzan Fareid presented perspectives and updates on their respective sub-sectors including Sri Lanka’s destination readiness and flight connectivity. The panel discussion that followed provided a forum for engagement and clarification for Indian travel industry and media representatives.
National Managing Committee Member of Travel Agent’s Association of India (TAAI) Sameer Karnani and Secretary of Travel Agents Federation of India’s (TAFI) Western India Chapter Arun Iyer commended Sri Lanka’s resilience in the face of adversity and expressed unreserved support for the country’s efforts to promote the tourism sector.
India is a key source market for tourism to Sri Lanka, with a recorded figure of outbound travellers numbering 531,511 in 2025, accounting for 22.3% of the total market share.
Consulate General of Sri Lanka
Mumbai
12 January 2026
