COLOMBO: Sri Lanka has been chosen by 200 Chinese couples to have a mass wedding, the island country’s Tourism Minister, John Amaratunga, said here on Thursday.
Amaratunga told parliament that Sri Lanka has been classified as an “ideal wedding destination.”
“Already reservations have been made for 200 Chinese couples to conduct a mass wedding in Colombo. We will see more happening in the future because Sri Lanka has been classified as an ideal wedding destination” he added.
With the growing number of travellers arriving in the country, Amaratunga said he was expecting tourist arrivals to exceed 2.2 million by year end and 4.5 million tourists by 2020.
In terms of revenue, last year, the tourism sector earned 3 billion US dollars while this year, its earnings are expected to be 3.5 billion dollars, the Minister said.
“We hope to make tourism the number one foreign exchange earner in the country. Sri Lanka has become a travel hot spot among the global travelling community,” he said.
Leading hotel chains are continuing to invest in Sri Lanka. Last week, the world-renowned Radisson Hotel agreed to construct two to three hotels in the island. This is in addition to the current investments by Movenpick, Shangri-La, ITC Marriot, Antara and Riu.
“This shows the confidence the international community has in Sri Lanka’s tourism sector. We are also trying to attract high-end travellers by investing in yachting, golfing, kite surfing and ballooning. Another area we will look into is medical tourism with a special emphasis on Ayurveda,” Amaratunga said.
Sri Lanka is also eyeing large cruise liners with thousands of passengers on board and would develop domestic airports across the country, including the war-torn Northern Province to accommodate chartered flights.
Sri Lanka is on the look out for land to construct a 3500 seat convention centre which will attract traffic especially from India and China.
“Recently the Lions Club in South East Asia had a conference in Colombo attended by over 3000 members. But unfortunately, there was no proper venue in Colombo to hold such a large number. If we construct a suitable centre we are confident of attracting more business travellers especially from India and China,” Amaratunga said.
The government is planning to increase accommodation from the existing 25,000 rooms to 45,000 in the next couple of years.