The outbound tourism from Middle Eastern region has been increasing since last few years tremendously and the same were reflected by the respective tourist statistics to Sri Lanka from the said market. Consequently, the State of Kuwait has been identified as a promising region which has a high growth rate throughout the past years.
The eight themes outlined in the tourism strategy from 2011-2016 will be the of promotions in the Middle East, whilst keeping the consistent theme of “Wonder of Asia”. Sri Lanka will focus more on fine-tuning the facilities to cater to the Middle Eastern traveller, such as, villa type accommodation, Hallal food, training and developing Arabic speaking guides, hotel staff to familiarize with Middle Eastern Customs.
Under the guidance of Hon. Basil Rajapaksa, the Minister of Economic Development, SLTPB has identified Middle East as a market with high potential, and therefore, a series of promotional activities have already been planned to be executed this lucrative market. With this ambition, a three day promotional campaign has been arranged to take place in the region and also leading personnel from Arabian Travel Agencies and Media will be invited to Sri Lanka for FAM tours in the next year.
In this year, SLTPB expects to attract 90,000 visitors from the Middle Eastern nations. In 2016, however, with the target of the Sri Lankan government to achieve 2.5 million arrivals, the total expectation from the Middle Eastern nations will rise up to 200,000 arrivals.
The Sri Lanka Tourism Road Show 2013 in Kuwait was organized and presented by the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Kuwait and the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau on the 1st of May 2013 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Kuwait.
The main objective of this event was to create destination awareness through leading tour operator and media units in the state Of Kuwait.
Major Tour operator from Sri Lanka also participated at the event to focus on starting a link with tour operators in Kuwait and to encourage the agents to include Sri Lanka as their next promising travel destination.
The event started off with an interesting speech and presentation by H.E. Ambassador C.A.H.M. Wijeratne on "Destination Sri Lanka – Wonder of Asia." It was followed by tourism promotional videos by SLTPB and presentations by Sri Lankan Airlines. The event was concluded with a business interaction sessions and a dinner reception.
