Tourism personality enters academia
View(s):
Vipula Wanigasekera seen conducting meditation sessions for tourist groups.
Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB) CEO Vipula Wanigasekera steps down from the institution to pursue a full time academic career from next month. Having served in the private sector for 15 years in Trade, Sales, Shipping, Exports and Marketing, Mr. Wanigasekera joined the Tourist Board as Director – Marketing in 1995. His contribution under difficult circumstances where tourism marketing had to be fcused on a continuous ‘ image correction’ , was recognized when he became one of the four Senior Diplomats selected by the Public Service Commission in 1997 through an independent selection process, a media release stated.
Thereafter he functioned as Counselor in Malaysia for three years and was cross posted to Norway to open the mission in Oslo where he continued for five years as its first Head of the Mission under two Governments. Upon his return in 2005 Mr. Wanigasekera rejoined the Tourism Authority as Chief Executive officer of the SLCB. Having faced a challenging period until 2009, Sri Lanka moved from 32,000 MICE tourists in 2008 to 144,000 in 2014 with 73 International conferences. The initial survey reveals over 168,000 MICE travelers to Sri Lanka in 2015 including Incentive Travelers. Sri Lanka is now positioned as a sought after venue for MICE Tourism (Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conferences, Exhibitions and Events).
As in the case of all Convention Bureaus around the world – there are over 1000 of them with city based Bureaus – SLCB’s role as a bidder and facilitator in bringing conferences and events, is inconspicuous except for Travel related conferences such as SNAV and PATA and the current dialogue to bring in Travel Congresses from Germany, UK and Belgium. Mr. Wanigasekera concurrently headed Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority as Acting Director General for two years where the Authority saw completion of resort developments for investments namely Passekudah , Kuchchiveli, Kalpitiya and Yala as well as submission of creative proposals for many attraction developments in lesser known areas, the release said. Mr. Wanigasekera has three more years before retirement but instead decided to contribute to the business academia keeping in line with the principle to pave a way for younger generation to take up responsibilities and perform.