Sri Lanka luring Bahrain tourists

Manama : Around 3,000 people from Bahrain visit Sri Lanka every year, an official revealed during a roadshow organised by Sri Lankan Tourism Promotion Bureau at Downtown Rotana Hotel in Manama yesterday.

The roadshow was intended to connect Sri Lankan travel agencies with Bahrain’s tourism sector. Businesses from Bahrain conducted Business to Business meetings with representatives from Sri Lanka during the road show.

“We are coming to Bahrain after a long time, maybe after around 10 years. This time we are doing the roadshow in four countries - Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar. This roadshow will be to connect our travel industry here and build relationships each-other. We have 15 travel agencies that have come from Sri Lanka and they are now in talks with Bahraini travel agents,” Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Marketing Director Madubhani Perara told DT News.

“This will not be a one-off event, we want to have this kind of events at least once in two years. We are planning for a similar event next year in Saudi and UAE. The average number of people who have visited Sri Lanka from Bahrain in recent years for tourism is 3000. We are hoping that this number will increase. From all over the world, we got 2.2 million tourists. Now our focus is to increase the numbers from Middle East. There is a lot of potential in this market because there are a lot of airline connections. We have daily flights from Bahrain via Sri Lankan Airlines. Gulf Air flies five times per week. So despite all these there are not as much tourism. So there is a potential to grow in this area. Air connectivity is the number one factor for tourism. From the Middle East we have 160 flights per week so we are covered in that regard,” she said.