Local agency brings down largest single Chinese group on incentive excursion
Reputed travel agent Lanka Sportreizen (LSR) performed an impressive feat recently bringing down a group of 1,566 Chinese from a single company on an incentive tour. Due to transport logistics issues, the visitors was brought down in 16 groups over a period of four weeks.
LSR, active in the Chinese market for over 10 years, has been able to attract the Chinese sales personnel marketing a Korean-branded cosmetics product, LSR Manager for the Chinese Market Chamika Dissanayaka told the Business Times. He noted that the visitors involved staff who had completed their targets and were given an incentive travel package by the company.
The first group arrived on June 17 and the last batch came here on July 22 on a 5-nights’ excursion, Mr. Dissanayaka said. Some 90 per cent of the group comprised females, and they travelled across visiting Bentota, Kandy, Sigiriya and Dambulla. Mr. Chamika said 46 buses and 18 Mandarin-speaking tour guides were involved in the tour with the largest group brought down being 400 guests. LSR CEO D.K.R. Dharmapala said that the company focuses a lot on China which has become a good generating market for the country and this department has been strengthened with Mandarin speaking guides.
Currently, he noted there is a shortage of these guides but due to the availability of senior guides in their cadre they were able to attract this segment of tourists. Mr. Dharmapala explained that this tour group deal came during LSR’s participation at a travel industry fair in China amidst initial worries as to whether Sri Lanka could handle a large contingent of travellers of this size. SriLankan Airlines says this is one of the biggest incentive travel groups to have visited the country.