Sri Lanka’s MICE Travel Mart ends with more prospects for Incentives
View(s):The group of 40 MICE (Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conferences and Exhibitions) buyers and Travel writers ended their round trip with a workshop in Colombo where presentations were made by Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB), SriLankan Airlines and SLAPCO followed by one-to-one meetings with industry members.
“In the final themed dinner the group from eight countries witnessed a mini Perahera staged only for this event. The pageant depicted all traditional dances with several decorated elephants. They were also given the opportunity to take photographs with the dancers in their costumes,” the SLCB said in a media release.
The round trip covered all attractions and locations where MICE events can be held. Participants expressed their total satisfaction and thanked SLCB for offering this opportunity which compels them to promote Sri Lanka among their clients. This was attended by many guests including the Chairman of SLCB Udaya Kumara Rupasinghe, Country Manager SriLankan Lalith de Silva and Minister’s representative Janaprith Fernando.
SLCB CEO Vipula Wanigasekera presented a detailed presentation and explained to participants that Sri Lanka’s MICE industry experienced a leap forward in the last few years recording over 144,000 MICE visitors to the country in the year 2014 of which majority has emerged from the Incentive Travel segment.
The workshop was addressed by Sri Lankan MICE Manager Gayan Peries and President of Sri Lanka Association of Professional Conference and Congress Organisers Zian Ameen. The local conference business has reached a new high with 62 international conferences held in 2014 and around 70 so far this year.
The release said that a number of Indian corporate have had their meetings here and among them are Paropkar group, Cadbury, Kaseya, Nokia, Omka, Mahendra & Mahendra, L’oreal, Sree Group, TMI group, Coca Cola, Philip, Epson, VVI, Canon and many others.