Fillip for MICE tourism

Minister of Tourism and Sports, Naveen Dissanayake has called upon Government institutions to promote Sri Lanka as a venue for conferences. The Minister has given the green light to the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB) to increase high-end visitors, saying that MICE tourists represent up-market visitors who are high spenders.

SLCB, CEO Vipula Wanigasekera said that conferences are a major component of MICE tourism for which Sri Lanka has immense potential to attract tourists of this segment which should be promoted aggressively.

"Sri Lanka can be a leading conference venue with new hotels being built with convention facilities," he said.

Sri Lanka will host mega events such as the Conference of Directors General of Civil Aviation, International Conference on Geotechnical Engineering, General Assembly of the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation, Asia Pacific Association for Hydro Environment Engineering and Research and the Commonwealth Medical Association Congress this year.

Officials of Government organisations attend many conferences overseas and the participants should be encouraged to bid for these conferences to be held in Sri Lanka.

The SLCB can assist such institutions in the bidding process and provide advice in organising events.

"The MICE target audience is different to that of the leisure market. MICE comprises high-end visitors who contribute a major share to the revenue of the tourism industry.

We need to identify the hosts and get them to work on conference leads and bring them to Sri Lanka," Wanigasekera said.

He said that the SLCB has worked with a large number of institutions such as medical associations to promote MICE tourism.

The public sector too could contribute to the growth of MICE tourism.