Sri Lanka_ Minister of Tourism Harin Fernando announced to the media that the 68th Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) travel convention will take place in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 6th to 9th July 2023. The event was postponed by the TAAI several times owing to the economic crisis faced by the island nation in 2022, yet remained determined to host the convention in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Tourism will be hosting this large-scale Indian travel convention while the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) will be overseeing and handling the proceedings.
President of the TAAI Jyoti Mayal, speaking to the media said, it was an honor to rekindle the relationship with Sri Lanka and talk more about tourism ties between the two neighboring countries.
“I feel Sri Lanka is an extension of India. Sri Lanka is so close in proximity that it could be a weekend destination for all our travelers. As the visas are very easy to procure for Sri Lanka, this is a huge opportunity to showcase Sri Lanka in all the ways it could be. There is actually a huge scope to enhance that,” Mayal further attributed.
A salient objective of the event is to promote Sri Lanka to Indian tourists as an ideal travel destination, thereby opening pathways to attract a large key target market to further strengthen Sri Lankan tourism. This highly anticipated convention comes at a favorable time for the island as several efforts are currently in place to stabilize the recovering travel and tourism industry.
Jyoti Mayal highlighted that the annual convention of the TAAI will host business conferences between stakeholders and agents of the two countries while also noting that the TAAI has scheduled to fly in 450 leading Indian travel agents to network with Sri Lankan travel and tourism game players, and 50 travel trade media personnel to cover the grand event. The Indian media crew will also be required to create content in order to promote Sri Lanka to its potential customer base in India.
Commenting on the vast scope yet to be discovered within the Sri Lankan tourism industry, Jyoti Mayal said, “Sri Lanka has everything to offer, including adventure tourism, wellness, conferences, weddings, and film and religious tourism.”
She added that several discussions are currently in place to build Sri Lanka as a networking hub for other countries, as the travel and tourism trade is a mainstream source of income for the developing island nation.
