Sri Lanka is in the process of identifying potential markets to promote it as an ideal wedding destination for tourists, The Daily Morning Business learnt.
Speaking to The Daily Morning Business recently, an officer from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Board (SLTDA), who wished to remain anonymous, said: “We look forward to India as one of the target markets in this segment (wedding tourism).”
Explaining on that, the SLTDA officer said that high end tourists from India are the target market.
The aforesaid officer added: “Their weddings just do not end in a day or two, they last upto four days in most of the time.”
Recently, India Today reported that the tourists from India do prefer Sri Lanka over the Maldives as the number of arrivals to Sri Lanka surpassed that of the Maldives following the ‘the diplomatic row between India and Maldives’.
Meanwhile, a report by the Male (The Maldives)-based news outlet Adhadhu stated that for the past four years, the tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka lagged behind the Maldives.
When The Daily Morning Business inquired whether Sri Lanka would benefit from India boycotting the Maldives in terms of either the wedding tourism or tourism overall, the SLTDA officer denied responding.
During the unveiling of the tourist plan called ‘Visit Sri Lanka’ last July, President Ranil Wickremesinghe announced that the Government aims to generate 5 million tourists of whom 2.5 million will be high-end visitors.
Speaking to The Daily Morning Business in April 2023, the SLTDA Chair Priantha Fernando said: “out of the approximate of 50,000 rooms in the formal sector, around 10,000 are qualified for the high-end tourists in terms of luxury villas, boutique hotels, four-star and five-star hotels,” while in three years the country would be able to increase its capacity with investments to the tourism sector.
