COLOMBO — August 10, 2026 — The evolution in Sri Lanka’s travel sector might not happen at an airport or in a plane. It could instead occur on the screen of a travel agent’s computer, where a multitude of fare offers, airlines, and ancillary services are presented before the customer receives his boarding pass.
That development is gaining momentum.
On Monday, August 10, 2026, one of the Sri Lankan leisure, travel, and aviation service providers, Acorn Group, announced that it has officially become the General Sales Agent (GSA) in Sri Lanka for Iris, a flight retail platform developed by a Dubai-based company, TPConnects Technologies.
The importance of the news lies in the advantages that Iris offers through a single portal.
The platform does not merely help travel agencies access the available offers. It combines the content of over 60 new distribution capability (NDC) sources and low-cost carriers and all four leading global distribution systems (GDSs).
As a result, this approach is very likely to create a revolution in the industry and dramatically change the way the Sri Lankan travel agents do their business.
Whereas the traditional model of booking flights relies on distribution systems providing airlines and travel agencies with the tools needed to work together as part of a digital ecosystem, current practices in the airline retailing industry go far beyond providing information about flights’ availability and pricing. Airlines are now interested in offering clients a complete package, which includes not only tickets but also baggage handling and meals, as well as numerous add-ons, with the aim of providing different offers to appropriate customers.
Iris has been developed specifically for this purpose.
Iris allows travel agencies to use private and publicly negotiated fares and brands available from airlines, as well as ancillary products and packages, while at the same time employing intelligent price discovery and after-sales services. Moreover, the platform has flexible payment terms and quick implementation that make the technology easier to adapt in practice.
For travelers, the improvement may prove to be less noticeable but at the same time much more significant since it means that they would be able to find the optimal option of price, timings, and additional services without contacting intermediaries.
According to Dushy Jayaweera, Partner and Head of the Aviation Sector of Acorn Group, as reported in the Daily Mirror, the tourism industry in Sri Lanka that is on the road to recovery needs more sophisticated airline services, quicker shopping, and better booking management.
Moreover, the timing could not be better.
The travel sector in Sri Lanka is getting established with the increasing demand for outgoing tourism while inbound travel is recovering. The country’s aviation industry is getting more digitally advanced at the same time. As an example, Sri Lankan airlines have stated that the brand will introduce an AI-powered system of revenue management that aims at achieving dynamic pricing, inventory optimization, and real-time availability by March of 2026.
Therefore, the Iris launch of Acorn cannot be considered only a technology partnership.
Instead, it marks a more fundamental change. The travel sector in Sri Lanka is moving from selling only flight tickets to using technology to sell complete travel packages.
As customers adapt to having everything done with instant access to information, efficient offers, and customer-friendly electronic transactions, the better the travel agent at intelligent searching, the more successful he is in closing sales.
In other words, the way is getting paved already for the new generation of travel retail in Sri Lanka.
