The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau in partnership with the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Sweden organized the participation of Sri Lankan Destination Management Companies (DMCs) at the Danish Travel Show held in Herning, Denmark on 21-23 February. The Danish Travel Show is Scandinavian region’s largest consumer holiday fair held under the theme “Travel for Everyone”. The 2020 fair saw the participation of 1,100 exhibitors representing 45 different countries offering diverse travel experiences. The fair annually attracts more than 60,000 visitors. The participation of Sri Lankan DMCs in this regional fair is important to showcase Sri Lanka, given the strong desire of the Swedish travelers to explore new destinations. Majority of Scandinavians generally travel on overseas holidays once or twice a year.
The Sri Lanka stand was declared open by Ambassador Sudantha Ganegama Arachchi together with Marketing Officer for Scandinavia Danojani Weerasinghe and industry representatives. During his remarks, Ambassador Ganegama Arachchi expressed the importance of conducting well planned and continuous tourism promotional activities by giving due consideration to new travel trends in the Scandinavian region such as wellness tourism and sustainability. The representatives of the Sri Lankan DMCs presented customized tour packages to the Scandinavian market and had one-to-one meetings with leading Danish travel companies which were present at the fair. The Danish travel industry representatives appreciated the intensified efforts being made by the Sri Lanka tourism industry to regain the Danish travel market which had a negative impact from the Easter Sunday attacks.
The Embassy organized a Sri Lanka tourism promotional event in partnership with LOT Polish Airlines at the Asia House, Copenhagen in November 2019. A familiarization tour consisting of four Danish tour operators and four Swedish tour operators will also take place in March 2020, in partnership with LOT Polish Airlines. Similar promotional activities are being planned for the year 2020, in addition to participation in travel fairs. The Embassy requests the Sri Lankan Destination Management Companies to give more focus to the Scandinavian region and to closely work with the Embassy to promote Sri Lanka tourism.