Sri Lanka to attract long haul travellers
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Sri Lanka is looking at tapping the long haul North American and Canadian markets. The island country plans to attract 100,000 tourists from US by 2016.
“We are working on an aggressive campaign to attract 100,000 American tourists to the Island by 2016,” Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the US and Mexico was quoted by The Lanka Business Online. The Sri Lankan embassy in Washington DC has initiated its own promotions to market the destination among American travellers through a program called the Ambassador’s ‘Signature Tour’. The program entails a group of American professional tours to Sri Lanka with the ambassador.
In 2011, North American arrivals to Sri Lanka rose 22% to 49,057 visitors from a year earlier. The first six months of 2012 showed a healthy growth of 20% with 27,355 visitors as compared to 22,753 arrivals during the same period last year.