South Africa woos Lankan tourists with roadshow

Tuesday, 10 February 2015 01:20 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Inshira Shainaz South African High Commission in Sri Lanka together with South African Tourism organised the ‘South African Tourism Road show’ to coincide with the visit of a high-powered tourism promotion delegation from South Africa yesterday at Cinnamon Grand, Colombo. Several popular South African suppliers such as Royal African Discoveries, City Lodge Hotel Group, Your Africa, Albatross Travel, African Hotels and Adventures and Three Cities Hotels, Zulu Nyala, Mantis collection, Private Safari Destination management, African Pride Tours and Cape Sidecar Adventures and more participated in the event.

Addressing the gathering, Africa and Middle East Business Council President and Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Vice Chairman Samantha Ranatunga stated that South Africa has earmarked tourism as a key sector with excellent potential for growth whilst, Government of Sri Lanka has identified the tourism as a priority sector in its strategic development plan. He said: “The booming Sri Lanka tourism industry created history by achieving an arrival target of 1.5 million tourists in December 2014. The sector is looking forward to attract over 2.5 million arrivals by the end of 2016.” The report reveals that the tourist arrival from South Africa to Sri Lanka recorded 23.4% growth reaching 4,155 arrivals in 2014. Ranatunga said: “We understand that approximately 4,300 Sri Lankans have obtained visa to travel to South Africa on business and leisure during 2014.” He added that the South African investors were invited to partner with the private sector in Sri Lanka and invest in projects offered by the Government. “In this background, investing in Sri Lanka to re-export is a promising option for investors from South Africa,” he added. He pointed out that preferential tariffs would be granted for agreed products under several promising bilateral and multilateral agreements such as the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement and Pakistan- Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement. Sri Lanka has found common grounds to develop economic partnership with South Africa and in recent years the economic partnership with South Africa has developed extending beyond trade to tourism. As Sri Lanka and South Africa have been enjoying the cordial relations over the years based on mutual respect and shared values and the organisers believe that the ‘South African Tourism Road show’ event would take the ongoing cooperation effort to a new level. Pix by Lasantha Kumara