The 2019 edition of the Thai International Travel Fair was held in Bangkok, Thailand last week. The inauguration was at the Bangkok Convention Center at Central World Bangkok followed by a gala dinner at Centara Grand. The event was attended by over 500 tourism stakeholders from around the world including Sri Lanka.
The chief guest at the inauguration was the Tourism Minister of Thailand, and the guest of honour was the Tourism Minister of Sri Lanka, John Amaratunga.
Minister Amaratunga later declared opened the Sri Lanka booth, which was the cynosure at the travel fair. Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau made use of the opportunity to launch a promotional micro site highlighting the Buddhist trail in Sri Lanka. The micro site consists of the main Buddhist tourism attractions in the country, meditation centres and facilities available to learn Buddhism in Sri Lanka.
The micro site was launched along with Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Thailand, Kshenuka Seneviratne, President of the Thai Travel Agents’ Association, Thanaphon Cheewarattanaporn and Chairman, Tourism Advisory Committee, Harry Jayawardena.
The parties discussed ways and means of increasing the number of arrivals to Sri Lanka from Thailand. Thai Travel agents emphasized that the relaxation of visa requirements would help increase arrivals. They pointed out that outbound traffic from Thailand to Japan increased by over one million when Japan granted visa on arrival to Thai nationals.