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| Sunday, 11 January 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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IT solutions provider sets up shop in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka can be promoted as a main international Information Technology hub in Asia, due to its high literacy rate, said Open World Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Christopher Shallis. "It is amazing to see the talents of Sri Lankans, which inspired us to invest here," he said. Open World is an international provider of Internet technology and media, and services the hospitality industry via content-rich websites and affiliated programs. He said Sri Lanka will be their main operations centre in Asia. "The growth of Asian businesses at a considerable pace prompted us to open this centre. The reason to select Sri Lanka was the conducive geographic location," Shallis emphasised. He said Lighthouse Hotel and Banyan Tree will come under the online booking service of Open World. At present, 30 locally recruited solutions providers are actively working with the company. This number is expected to increase upto 50 before the end of this year. The company had invested US$ 300,000 in Sri Lanka. This would also be an excellent opportunity to promote Sri Lanka's tourism industry globally. Online booking can be done through various languages such as Italian, Chinese, German, Korean, Greek, Russian, Spanish and Japanese. A prestigious hotel in Japan, Okura Hotel, is a regular client of the company. According to Shallis, the company has more than 500 customers in 50 countries, covering 20,000 hotels comprising two million rooms. It is said that more than US$ 100,000 worth of online bookings are done per day. The company has won prestigious awards such as the Forbes Best of the Web Award in 2001, Best Hotel Website Award in 2002 and the Best Hotel and Lodging Website Award in 2003. |
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