Sri Lanka featured at Frankfurt show

Sri Lanka made a strong presence at this year's IMEX 005 trade fair, a specialised event for the meetings industry held in Frankfurt, Germany from April 19 to 21. A delegation from the Sri Lankan Meetings Industry led by the Sri Lankan Convention Bureau and SriLankan Airlines attended the fair. IMEX has become the benchmark worldwide exhibition of the meetings and incentive travel industry.

The 2005 show enjoyed record attendance of 3,000 exhibiting companies from 140 countries representing national and regional tourist and convention offices, major hotel groups, airlines, destination management companies, service providers, trade associations and more.

Over 3,000 hosted buyers from more than 50 world markets visited IMEX 2005, contributing to a total of over 7,000 visitors for the show.

Taking into account the level of misperceptions created by media reporting on the tsunami, the Bureau was able to communicate with IMEX organisers prior to the event and arrange a press conference which was attended by over 30 media personnel from reputed media institutions.

Convention Bureau Chairman Haniffa Ishak, briefed the media of the pre and post tsunami situation in the country where there has been no adverse effects on the Meetings Industry and that the industry is fully geared to host visitors from all its markets.

Tourist Board representative in Frankfurt Channa Jayasinghe also participated.