With the objective to keep growing its largest MICE market, Sri Lanka Convention Bureau mounted a large delegation to participate in business travel fair BLTM in New Delhi. At a session, General Manager Krishantha Fernando underlined the numerous actions taken by SLCB to promote the destination in the Indian market. SLCB was also awarded ‘Most Promising MICE Destination’ at the fair.

At the two-day business travel fair BLTM, that concluded in Delhi on Saturday, Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB) has been recognised as the ‘Most Promising MICE Destination’.

SLCB led a sizeable delegation of various tourism stakeholders from Sri Lanka for participation at the Business Leisure and Luxury Travel Mart (BLTM) exhibition, that began in Delhi on Friday.

‘‘This is my first participation at BLTM and I am sincerely honored  about the recognition of Sri Lanka Convention Bureau as the “Most Promising MICE Destination” at the BLTM. This will provide us a great recognition and opportunity to position Sri Lanka as a MICE destination,’’ Krishantha Fernando, General Manager of Sri Lanka Convention Bureau, tells India Outbound.

According to a press statement issued by SLCB, BLTM is an exclusive two-day travel mart focused on business, leisure travel and MICE tourism. It adds that it provided destination marketers and travel service providers an opportunity to meet and network each other for fruitful business negotiations.

‘‘Having been participant of over the past years at BLTM, Sri Lanka is looking forward to get more constructive business avenues with the potential Indian MICE stakeholders,’’ Fernando tells India Outbound.

Fernando also contributed at the Knowledge Session on the “MICE and Business Travel — Strategies and Tactics in a changing market dynamic” held parallel to the BLTM  2023.

In the session, Fernando underlined the importance of the Indian tourism market for Sr Lanka and especially the MICE segment which has seen tremendous growth. “Indian MICE market is the largest for us and it has grown extremely rapidly in the post-pandemic era. We have been very proactive in this market and have organised several actions in the market, including conducting roadshows in several cities of India,’’ Fernando told the gathering.

“We also organised the Sri Lanka MICE Expo 2023 earlier this year where almost 60 pc of hosted buyers were from India. Going forward, too, we will keep this high-level engagement with our Indian partners,’’ he added.

He also announced the organisation of a dedicated expo for the Northern Province of Sri Lanka later this year. “In November, we will organise the Jaffna MICE Expo 2023, primarily for the southern Indian market as the two regions have had long and close relations,’’ Fernando added. He said that Air India had increased the frequency of the recently-launched direct flight from Chennai to Jaffna, making it a daily flight due to the extremely strong response it received from Indian travellers.

SLCB says that 24 local tour operators focusing on the MICE tourism were part of its delegation for the two-day show. It adds that SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of Sri Lanka, partnered with SLCB to promote destination Sri Lanka.

SLCB says that being the government organisation functioning under the Ministry of Tourism and Lands, SLCB organised the participation at the BLTM as part of its Annual Marketing Plan 2023.

Sri Lanka Convention Bureau was the partner country of BLTM 2023, and sponsored the Hosted Buyer visiting card holder.  It says that the visiting card holder included SLCB branding and distributed among the hosted buyers.  It says that sponsoring of business card holder is one of the most effective ways to position Sri Lanka.

SLCB adds that India is a major market for the Sri Lanka tourism focusing both business and leisure tourism with the highest number of arrivals in 2022. As per the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, 170,247 tourists arrived from India during the period of January to August 2023 and which represents 22.4 pc of total arrivals.  India is the largest source market for Sri Lanka for both leisure and MICE or business tourism. Therefore, as a destination it is vital for Sri Lanka to build the engagement with the stakeholders of India.

SLCB was supported by the Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi, India for organising the event.  As per the BLTM statistics, Sri Lanka had the biggest delegation of participation at the BLTM.