Major MICE travel mart in Feb/March
View(s):Sri Lanka, with a successful year in attracting small conferences and meetings in the bag, aims to expand this segment in 2015, initially focusing on a MICE travel mart for regional incentives and conference planners as the ‘best advertisement’.
Vipula Wanigasekera, General Manager of the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB) says that a MICE Travel Mart – the first ever here – will be held in February/March where 50-100 incentive and conference planners from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam will be hosted with pre-paid airfares and free hotel accommodation. “We want to show this group — the most important in the MICE industry — the diversity of our offerings from city hotels to the green, green environment outside,” he said. The number of conferences this year rose to 62 from 42 in 2013 while a 10-20 per cent increase is forecast for 2015. Of the 2.4 million visitors to Sri Lanka this year so far, 140,000 were MICE travellers, official data showed.
Another initiative with huge expectations in 2015 is a campaign using representatives of 200 government organisations attending conferences abroad to promote the country as a conference destination and present an expression of interest to host the meeting in Colombo. “We met the heads and senior officials of these state organisations and impressed (on them) the need to promote Sri Lanka through the conference circuit,” another tourism industry official said.
A mega promotion campaign by the SLCB will also get underway in several Indian cities including Mumbai and Delhi in January to promote meetings and incentive travel to Sri Lanka.
Event planners like Aasim Mukthar, General Manager, Lanka Exhibition and Conference Services (Pvt), say that there has been a drop in Indian incentive visitors due to costly hotel prices where 5-star rates in Colombo are a minimum US$170 B/B per night compared to $100 or less in Malaysia or Thailand. “Indians also find it boring outside Colombo as there is not much nightlife or after-dark entertainment,” Mr. Mukthar said.
In response, Mr. Wanigasekera said that 50 per cent of the Indian incentives market (targeting over one million corporate travellers) may look for cheaper options but the balance is willing to pay for a diverse product and this is where Sri Lanka stands out. “Our diversity is unmatched and we are essentially one of the few green, green destinations still around,” he added.