More than 100 journalists/travel writers visited Sri Lanka in 2007

SriLankan Airlines has obtained wide publicity for Sri Lanka as a tourist destination, by organising visits by more than 100 journalists and travel writers in 2007 from the country’s major tourism generating nations.

Chandana De Silva, Head of Corporate Communications at SriLankan, said: “The visits of these journalists are an important part of the numerous efforts of SriLankan Airlines to support Sri Lanka as a global tourism destination. They are invited and brought to Sri Lanka at the airline’s expense, not only to write about the airline, but to provide valuable publicity for the country.”

Journalists on familiarization tours typically spend a week in the island, with the airline organising visits to the southern beach resorts, the mountain region of Nuwara Eliya, and cultural areas such as Dambulla, Sigiriya and Kandy. They also spend some time in Colombo, where they are shown the attractions of the capital, including its value-for-money shopping areas, the airline said in a press statement.

Ruvini Jayasinghe, Manager Media Relations, said: “We obtain the maximum publicity from these visits by choosing specialist travel writers and sports journalists from the most widely circulated magazines, newspapers, and electronic media. We are assisted in this by our PR agencies in target markets, and staff in our ticket offices around the world.”

In October alone, the airline hosted 63 media persons from Germany, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, France, Japan, UK, India, Bahrain, Malaysia, Oman and Dubai. They included 43 who covered the SriLankan Golf Classic at the Victoria Golf & Country Club.

There was also a group of six from Oman, another eight from Coimbatore to coincide with the launch of the airline’s services there.