Business travel

Al Jazeera to promote Lanka's tourism in Middle East

The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority and SriLankan Airlines in a joint media campaign selected Al Jazeera, a leading Gulf based channel to promote tourism in the Middle East.

The media campaign will be launched early this month targeting the lucrative Middle East market with a large number of expatriates and a wealthy population. The Tourism Authority will target the holiday booking period of Middle East travellers.

Chairman, Tourism Development Authority Renton de Alwis said the Middle East tourism sector has developed recording a 31 per cent growth last year. Arrivals from the region which were 10,345 in 2006 increased to 13,554 at the end of last year.

The participation at the Arab Travel Fair and recent visits by the Deputy Minister of Tourism Faizer Musthapa have helped to attract more tourists from the region. The media campaign will be an impetus to promote Sri Lanka as a holiday destination for Middle East travellers", he said. Setting up an Al Jazeera South Asia based Bureau in Colombo will be a proposal of the strategic partnership which will help promote tourism beyond commercial value.

Musthapa said the war should not be an obstacle to promote Sri Lanka as a holiday destination. Despite tensions in Egypt it had one million British tourists last year. Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Palitha Kohona said a partnership with Al Jazeera, a media giant in the Middle East will help to position Sri Lanka as a preferred and safe destination in the world tourism map.

Businessmen and traders from Saudi Arabia had visited Sri Lanka since the 13th century. Sri Lanka and Middle East trade ties have been strengthened over the years and through this campaign we will be able to woo more tourists from the region", Dr. Kohona said.

Al Jazeera which commenced operations 12 years ago was the first channel in the region to telecast comprehensive news and live debates to the global audience. The channel has over 50 million viewers across the globe.

SriLankan Airlines has launched air-fair packages to increase the number of travellers from the Middle East.

LF

Club Hotel Dolphin ploughs ahead in Q3

The popular beach resort in Waikkal, Club Hotel Dolphin continues to defy the current gloomy trend of tourism, returning spectacular profits at the end of Q3. The net turnover stood at Rs. 234.2 million with a net profit of Rs. 36 million.

This is far in excess of the hotel's performance at the end of Q3, 2006, which was Rs. 188.1 million net revenue and NP of Rs. 20.2 million.

However, compared to Q2, there was a decline in the revenue for Q3, following the difficult period that tourism has gone through in the past few months. "Regardless of the difficult times ahead, we are fairly certain Club Hotel Dolphin will perform well in Q4 and end the financial year with a record performance," said the CEO, Srilal Miththapala.

Club Hotel Dolphin boasts of several strong market segments and is a popular product in the British market, with its main partner First Choice UK.

It has a very strong local corporate market segment, as well as airline stop over business. Continuous product upgrade and value additions has kept Dolphin ahead of the competition.

Wins Wine Sommelier competition

A product of Cinnamon Lodge Habarana, Amila Uddika Dissanayake, was adjudged the E & J Gallo Winner Sommelier Champion at the Wine Appreciation Program at the Cinnamon Grand recently.

Amila was among 300 other participants from all over the island who took part in the program which was held for over three months.

He was awarded a shield and certificate for his outstanding performance in Sommelier skills.

The program was in three rounds: regional, semi-finals and finals. Of the five participants from Cinnamon Lodge Habarana, Amila was selected for the semi-finals with 26 other participants after getting through a written test.

In the semi-final round, the participants, in addition to being trained in Colombo for four days on wine tasting by the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism, were tested on aroma tasting and identifying and describing particular wines.

Amila was among the top 12 who were chosen for the finals at which he outdid the other contestants with his knowledge on sales skills, pairing wine and food, service of wine, convincing ability and character of wines, among a few other important aspects. In second place was Hilton Colombo, while Taj Exotica came third.

Amila joined Habarana Lodge as a trainee steward two-and a half years ago. With the re-branding of Habarana Lodge as Cinnamon Lodge Habarana, the butler service was introduced as a value addition and Amila was selected for this training, purely on his performance since joining the hotel.

Though a steward and butler, Amila was also selected by the training team to the development squad of Cinnamon Lodge for the Bartenders' competition.