Business Travel

Grand Hotel dominates Flower Show

Meticulous planning, sheer dedication painstaking efforts and continuous attention have been the contributive factors for the Grand Hotel to secure the prime awards at the Flower Competition known as ‘April Blooms’ during the Nuwara Eliya April festivity continuously for the past 17 years.

The Grand Hotel dominated the Flower Show in the “Commercial Large” Category by winning the following awards.

Commercial Large Category: Best Garden; Best Lawn; Best Fences and Hedges; Best Flower Arrangement.

They won the following Awards in the entire commercial category.

Best Collection of Roses; Best Collection of Potted Plants; Best exposition of Cut Flowers, i.e. Overall winner of the Cut Flower category.

The Grand Hotel which secured the first prize for the Best Flower Arrangement for the Commercial Large Category was created by the Assistant Housekeeper V. Jesudason. This artistic arrangement was commended by almost all those who visited the Flower Show. He also won the Second Place for the Best Small Flower Arrangement in the Commercial Category.

Anyone would be mesmerised with the array and vivid flora still in bloom despite the inclement weather conditions which prevailed during the past few months.

A spokesman for the Hotel said, year after year, our Garden and its layout are improved and changed, so that it is definitely a fresh and unique experience every time the guests take a walk around the garden as variation is our forte.

The flowers in our Garden have been identified and labelled, so that guests could also gather knowledge about the flowers and not merely admire them.

The creative hedges in different shapes and styles exhibit the talent of our Gardeners with the shears.

Aitken Spence among Lanka’s Top 5

Aitken Spence was ranked among the top 5 companies in Sri Lanka by Business Today with the award being received by its Chairman D. H. S. Jayawardena from President Mahinda Rajapaksa, recently.

Dr. Rohan M. Fernando, a Director and the Head of Business Development of the diversified Group said, “Our strategy to strengthen our operations in the country whilst leveraging our management expertise to aggressively diversify overseas has contributed towards a consistent performance as a group”.

Aitken Spence moved up three places to show the best improvement in rankings amongst Business Today’s annual top ten listed companies in Sri Lanka.

Business Today, a leading business magazine, has been conducting its survey of top corporate performers since 1998.

The survey is based on published financial information of private sector companies listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange. The magazine said that the company’s consistent performance, consolidation and growth have resulted in being recognised amongst the top ten companies in the country.

Previously, Aitken Spence was the only company to move up in LMD’s Top Ten listed companies in Sri Lanka, also for the financial year 2006/07. LMD refers to its annual LMD 50 as Sri Lanka’s version of the Fortune 500.

The LMD 50 has been published annually since 1993.

Cathay Pacific offers Bangkok package

With school vacations round the corner, Cathay Pacific Airways now offers exciting holiday packages to Bangkok. Get away with your family for two nights and three days to experience the delights of the Kingdom.

Cathay Pacific’s special Bangkok holiday package includes return air ticket, hotel accommodation for two nights with breakfast, return airport transfers and a tour of Bangkok’s breathtaking temples.

The package also offers a dazzling discount voucher at King Power Duty Free Shop.

You get a stunning range of budget to 5 star hotels to choose from and you can extend your holiday at a nominal rate for each extra night you stay.

Sales and Marketing Manager for Cathay Pacific Airways Colombo Ms. Ruhan Abbas said; “We are delighted to offer a great opportunity to enjoy an unforgettable holiday with this exciting package timed for the school vacation.

It is specially designed to provide young families a great chance to experience the sights and sounds of Bangkok while relaxing together.”

KumbukRiver nominated for Oscars of the travel world

Sri Lanka’s KumbukRiver has been picked among the world’s 10 best eco-lodges, for the second year running by the World Travel Awards, the Oscars of the travel and tourism world.

KumbukRiver, a 14-acre up-market eco-lodge by the waters of Kumbukkan Oya in Buttala is famous internationally for a spellbinding 40ft elephant edifice which serves as an exclusive villa for visitors and will vie for the top slot when professionals from over 160,000 travel agents in over 200 countries vote for the Green Awards category at the 15 year-old event hailed as the most coveted awards scheme of the travel and tourism industry.

KumbukRiver’s dramatic entry receives further significance as the other resorts nominated are all large-scale and well-established enterprises and only eight countries are on the honours list with only four eco-lodges making the list from the last year, including the winners, the world-famous Daintree Eco-Lodge and Spa of Australia.

Malaysia joins Sri Lanka among the only two Asian destinations on the coveted list.

The nomination by the WTA puts the eco-lodge from far-flung Buttala on the world tourism map, not for the first time, with KumbukRiver securing two other international accolades.

KumbukRiver was short-listed for an award at the Virgin-Responsible Tourism Awards last year, while Times-Online voted it among the world’s 50 best green places to stay, making KumbukRiver the hottest Sri Lankan destination in the world of responsible tourism.

Offering a shot in the arm to the crippled tourism industry, Sri Lanka also figures in the Asia category, in addition to KumbukRiver’s extraordinary nomination in the ‘world’s leading...’ category.

Sri Lanka has been nominated for Asia’s leading destination offering a ray of hope for the country as a nomination at the WTA receives the attention of the world media, especially in Europe and USA.

Cabinet approves Kalpitiya tourism resort project

Cabinet has approved the preparation of a master plan to develop the Kalpitiya peninsula in the Puttalam district as a special tourist project on the instructions of Minister of Tourism Milinda Moragoda.

The Kalpitiya peninsula is a unique destination by itself with a cluster of 14 islands of varied sizes. Five of these islands are inhabited while the rest are frequented only by the seasonal fishing community.

The Kalpitiya Integrated Resort Project was initiated as far back as 2003 when action was initiated to prepare a Master Plan for Kalpitiya.

However, action on the project got delayed due to a scarcity of initial funding required in developing the basic infrastructure prior to other construction.

To address this issue and to accelerate the project, Cabinet approval was obtained by the Minister of Tourism.

The Ministry of Tourism had already appointed a project Steering Committee and together with this a project office was set up.

The project Steering Committee represents all the stakeholder agencies including North Western Province Land Commissioner, Chairman/Central Environmental Authority, Coast Conservation Department, Fisheries Department, Road Development Authority and Urban Development Authority.

To cover various aspects of the project intensively in terms of immediate action required several sub committees were set up in the area of infrastructure development, land acquisition, investment, community awareness creation, legal and environment.

The project office will be headed by a Project Director and the rest of the staff will be Project Manager, Consultant / Architect, Engineer and support staff.

The project office is in the process of reviewing the existing plans for Kalpitiya to formulate a distinctive concept for the Kalpitiya Resort like in Bali in Indonesia.

The development envisaged will be strictly environmental friendly and ecologically sound and catering to the up market tourists.

R P C Global Travels completes Bangkok tour

R P C Global Travels recently completed a successful four-day tour of 300 passengers to Bangkok.

The passengers were in three groups, each approximately 100 and were dealers of Arpico Flexifoam (Pvt) Ltd. R P C Global Travels is scheduled to take two more similar ‘incentive’ groups to Malaysia this month.

They are the top type dealers of Arpico Flexifoam.

Explaining the reason for the Company’s success, Managing Director of R P C Global Travels Franklyn Mendis said, “We were encouraged by the enthusiastic response we had from the ‘incentive’ groups.

They were delighted with our service because they were accompanied by our experienced and professional staff who looked into every nitty-gritty from the beginning to the end of the trip.”

R P C Global Travels is the strategic business unit of the Richard Pieris Group and has emerged as a successful travel agency within a short period.

Singapore Airlines ticket winner

Metatechno Lanka together with Fitness First organised the Sri Lanka-Japan Friendship Marathon recently. the University Girls event winner Ms A.A. Nilanka Sanjeewani of the University of Sri Jayawardenapura received the return air ticket to Singapore from Public Relations Manager Singapore Airlines Mrs Shihana Cader.