Tourism personality enters academia

The CEO of the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB) Vipula Wanigasekera steps down from the institution to pursue a full time academic career from next month.

Having served the private sector for 15 years in trade, sales, shipping, exports and marketing, Wanigasekera joined the Tourist Board as Director - Marketing in 1995. His contribution under difficult circumstances where tourism marketing had to be focused on a continuous 'image correction', was recognized when he became one of the four senior diplomats selected by the Public Service Commission in 1997 through an independent selection process.

Thereafter, he functioned as Counsellor in Malaysia for three years and was cross posted to Norway to open the mission in Oslo where he continued for five years as its first Head of the Mission under two Governments.

Upon his return in 2005 Wanigasekera rejoined the Tourism Authority as Chief Executive officer of the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau. Having faced a challenging period until 2009, Sri Lanka moved from 32,000 MICE tourists in 2008 to 144,000 in 2014.

Wanigasekera concurrently headed Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority as Acting Director General for two years.

He has three more years before retirement but instead decided to contribute to the business academia keeping in line with the principle to pave way for the younger generation to take up responsibilities.

Wanigasekera is a CIM London qualified Marketeer and holds an MBA from the PIM, Sri Jayawardenepura. As a writer, he has written over 50 tourism related articles covering areas that are yet to be positioned and presented to future tourists through various communication modes.

He is a fully qualified classical Karnatic vocalist and his album with the lyrics by the Poet Yohanka Jayasuriya - 'Sithijaya' went viral online. He has just finished his movie script which he hopes to present to an international cinematographer.