SL Tourism to host mega French travel conference
View(s):The Ministry of Tourism is aiming to guide and invigorate French visitors, the fifth largest source market for Sri Lanka tourism, by hosting the JEV 2016 Congress (formerly known as SNAV 2016 Congress) in Colombo in October, through the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB), the apex body handling MICE tourism in the country.
It is after an 11-year hiatus that JEV had picked a destination in Asia to host this major event, last being held in 2005 in Beijing.
SLCB Chairman Prema Cooray told reporters this week that the congress will boost MICE tourism in the country. “We are fortunate to host this event which will bring in substantial benefits to Sri Lanka’s travel and tourism industry. In the last inspection held about a week ago we were told that Sri Lanka is now once again in the top 20 outbound travel destinations of France and we were generously told that Sri Lanka will be named the destination to travel for 2017.”
The congress sees the attendance of over 500 delegates, majority of them being outbound agents in France.
Mr. Cooray said Sri Lanka wanted to take advantage of every opportunity for French outbound agencies to visit Sri Lanka and see and experience the country for themselves.
The JEV Congress will take place on October 31 to November 4 – 2016. The main event will take place in Colombo and the key hotels that will be used for the purpose are the Cinnamon Grand, the Taj Samudra and the Kingsbury.