Sri Lanka is hot

Earlier this year I met with the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, one of the best convention venues in Colombo.

We started our conversation by observing the following fact: Sri Lanka is a hot subject in all the magazines today! Everyone seems to be writing about it. In Asia Pacific it is already viewed as the fastest growing MICE destination.

I had a most enlightening exchange with Chairman Prema Cooray about this evolution… and he should know a thing or two about the growth of tourism and the meetings industry in his country.

Reports Marcel A.M. Vissers

Why Sri Lanka?

If you travel a lot you’re often asked the question: “What is the prettiest country you’ve ever visited?”

I have been close to 100 different countries but I have to admit that I’ve lost my heart to Sri Lanka. I can cite a myriad of reasons why this happened. First of all the people. They are so nice and delightful. Then there is the prevalence of Buddhist culture everywhere you go, not to mention the pristine quality and the abundance of nature.

Just imagine… a 1350 km long coastline with mostly virgin beaches, interspersed with simple fisherman’s’ dwellings or palm trees and tea plants swinging in the breeze. And all of this comes with pleasant weather conditions for most of the year.

Yet, the cherries on the cake are the spiritual values this country exudes. During my recent visit last June the awesome beauty of this island struck me. Colombo may not be the prettiest city in Asia Pacific but then it is so clean and that’s amazingly visible everywhere you go, even in the smallest countryside villages. There is no doubt that this is a major asset, which has strong appeal for visitors and convention delegates in particular. Both safe and irresistible… I think that’s a fair definition!

COLOMBO, A BRAND-NEW CITY

I had an amiable conversation with Mr. Prema Cooray, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau, about Colombo’s ongoing expansion as well as the development of tourism in general and the meetings industry in particular.

Mr. Cooray is a strong defender of the values his country stands for. He is against mass tourism because he believes it doesn’t fit the island state’s vocation. He believes Sri Lanka first and foremost has to defend its valuable natural beauty, its fauna and flora. He admits that he’s always been fascinated by the principles of sustainability and commits to making sure that the country can remain at the forefront of innovation in that field.

“One of our iconic hotels”, said Mr Coorey, “was designed and built in the 1990’s by Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka’s famous architect. I was with him, when he chose the spot for the Heritance Kandalama hotel, his masterpiece. Here he created an austere building that derives its beauty from the surrounding landscape. This hotel has become an icon of sustainable architecture.”

Mr. Cooray continued: “We have been through some difficult times. When our civil war ended in 2009 we barely had half a

million visitors a year, now we have reached the two million mark. We are currently witnessing a real explosion. All the major international hotel chains are present in our country and many corporate headquarters are being set up in the capital.”

Take Cinnamon Life for instance. It is a large integrated resort consisting of a 800-room luxury hotel, a large high-end retail mall, luxury residencies, state-of- the-art office space and convention, ballroom and banqueting space. Cinnamon Life is not merely an architectural icon but a ‘life capital’, an architectural heartbeat in the city that is expected for completion by 2019. Worth noting also is that Shangri-La, Hyatt, ITC, Sheraton and Movenpick are scheduled to be inaugurated within the next two years, and they all will boast conference facilities. And there is a bigger project still: the Port City of New Colombo, which is to be built on, reclaimed land adjacent to the Galle Face Green. The city will use resources from the Colombo Harbour Expansion Project, currently under construction near the site of this proposed city. The construction was set to begin in March 2011 but then the project was stopped, mainly because of the high costs as well as several environmental issues. A scaled down programme has recently been approved and expectations are that it will be completed by 2018.

There is also speculation about a new congress centre but much still remains to be answered for.

The first step should be to get consensus about an appropriate location and then to hope that the rest comes together because a new purpose-built centre is needed very urgently.

www.visitsrilanka.net/