Sri Lanka Tourism and Tea Board in Rs. 1 b tie-up

Tuesday, 3 March 2015 02:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau (SLTPB), whose focus is to drive Sri Lanka as destination brand globally, has extended its support to build Ceylon Tea in each of the 47 key travel and tourism fairs by offering the facility of featuring a ‘tea bar’ in every stall. The tie up is worth almost Rs. 1 billion given that Sri Lanka Tourism is investing this value this year in its global drive to rev up visitor arrivals, which registered only 7% growth in January 2015. Commenting on the tie-up, Sri Lanka Tea Board Marketing Director Premala Srikantha said: “This is a big win for Ceylon Tea given that it will supplement the work we currently do at the Tea Board.”

SLTPB Chairman Rohantha Athukorala said a transparent process would be followed where Sri Lanka Tourism would write formally to the Tea Exporters Association (TEA) on the key global fairs that Sri Lanka Tourism will be participating in, such as the one in China next week, followed with MITTE in Moscow the week after and NATAS in Singapore, and TEA can recommend the brands to be featured by the membership. Six key Ceylon Tea exporters will be featured at ITB, Berlin, which the biggest travel and tourism fair globally. “This is a big win on this partnership,” said Athukorala, who has been a member of the Sri Lanka Tea Board – Marketing Committee for the last six years. Sampling of the tea and brochure distribution will be done whilst dedicated Ceylon Tea promoters being there is part of the historic Tea Board and Sri Lanka Tourism partnership. The Sri Lanka Tea Board registered export revenue of $ 1.6 billion last year whilst Sri Lanka Tourism earned $1.7 billion. However, Athukorala mentioned: “If we take the total value chain of the tourism industry, the total value will exceed six billion dollars, making it the number one foreign exchange earner to the country. Hence we must support not only tea but also other key export products like apparel, Ceylon Cinnamon and Ceylon Sapphires, so that brand Sri Lanka in totality benefits. Currently brand Sri Lanka is worth $ 61 billion as per Brand Finance (UK). We must make brand Sri Lanka cross $ 100 billion by end 2016.”