TRAVEL

Road Show continues in Kiev, Ukraine

On Saturday and Sunday, main promotional events were conducted at the shopping and entertainment center “DreamTown”. Shopping and entertainment center “DreamTown” is the place that meets all the criteria of shopping and entertainment.

It has everything and more;many brand shops, where you can find everything from mobile phones to jewelry and fur coats, cafes, restaurants, bistros, pizzerias, it also is suitable for outdoor activities such as bowling, billiards, curling, and an ice ring, all in one place.

The pride of the location is a unique water park “Jurassic.”

It is the largest indoor water park in Europe with an area of 24,000 square meters. Shopping center Dream Town is for the whole family where there are a lot of interesting activities.
 

Dream Town is unique not only for its location but also the interior design with each entrance atrium been decorated in the style of the most popular tourist destinations of the world namely; Paris, Greece, China, Brazil and Hollywood. Within just a few hours a visitor can travel around the world and can purchase gifts for the whole family. If you want to spend time in style and quality holiday shopping, the shopping center Dream Town is exactly what you need.

During the weekend Sri Lanka was availed an atrium to display all about Sri Lanka by the management of the shopping mall “DreamTown”.

The whole atrium was decorated with photos and posters exhibiting Sri Lankan culture, history, ancient cities, beaches, flora and fauna, wild life and cuisine, thus creating an atmosphere of total Sri Lankan. The performance of Sri Lankan dancers with much loved interaction with civilians was also a major attraction during the weekend. Liquid tea service, distribution of promotional material and competitions too were carried out during the program.

The importance of conducting tourism promotion in Ukraine is that, it is a potential market with space to expand the industry. If the tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka are analyzed for the years 2011 and 2012, Ukraine marked an increment of 124 percent as against the 32 percent increment of the Russian Federation.

Another important aspect that needs consideration is the commencement of direct flights from Kiev to Colombo which would certainly facilitate the influx of tourist arrivals. Having conducted an extremely successful promotional campaign in Kiev for a period of one week, the Road Show rolls back to Moscow on April 1,2013.

Pearl Grand opens at Colombo 4

Pearl Groups’ second Star class Hotel, The Pearl Grand, an iconic land mark in the city of Colombo, was opened last week by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Pearl City Hotel which is the first venture of Pearl Group, already in operation and the new Pearl Grand offers a variety of well laid out and luxuriously furnished rooms, with all modern amenities of the state of the art in Colombo 4.

The Pearl Grand offers 96 rooms and the roof top swimming pool is a major attraction.
 

RTP, LINC project concludes in Bentota

The first phase of the training programme initiated by the Responsible Tourism Partnership (RTP) and LINC Project to educate beach operators of Bentota concluded recently.

The second phase was initiated in September 2012 with the objective of educating and training taxi drivers of Bentota with the guidance of Ms. Jennie Morgan (Project Officer, The Travel Foundation, United Kingdom), Sanjeeva Perera (President Bentota Beruwala Hoteliers Association/General Manager Bentota Beach Hotel) and Thalawe Sangarathana Thero (Chief incumbent, Sri Dharmavijayaramaya, Pitaramba). Sujith Yamasinghe, Senior lecturer Travel and Tourism SLITHM and Programme Manager LINC Project Bentota coordinated the programme with the assistance of Madushanka Jayasinghe. The training programmers focus on the personal professional development of the taxi drivers, grooming them on how to carry out their daily activities in a professional manner, approaching a customer, dining with guests just to name a few.

Forty taxi drivers successfully completed the programme and were provided with a uniform in order to uphold the uniformity of the association.

The participants also received a certificate for successfully completing the training. The third phase will focus on grooming the three wheeler drivers of the area. The completion of these three phases marks Bentota as a model tourist operating structure. The Responsible Tourism Partnership training programmes are conducted with the coordination and guidance of Bentota Beach Hotel as yet another community initiative upholding the values of I will care.

Most significantly, the programme is a union of the private and public sector of Sri Lanka with the alliance of Travel Foundation UK which sets an important milestone in carving out the way forward for Sri Lankan tourism.

Sri Lanka offers tax-free zone at Mattala new airport

Sri Lanka is turning its newest international airport opening Monday into a tax-free zone to attract aviation-related industries, a top official said. Talks were under way to set up aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul operations at the $209 million airport located near wildlife sanctuaries in the island's southeast, airport chairman Prasanna Wickremasuriya told AFP.

The airport can accommodate Airbus A-380, the biggest passenger liner in service, and is part of ambitious plans to turn the district of Hambantota, the home constituency of President Mahinda Rajapakse, into the new commercial capital of Sri Lanka.

“We can be a regional hub for aircraft maintenance. Negotiations are on with a big European operator to set up a facility at Mattala,” Wickremasuriya said. “We have huge potential for cargo and tourist traffic as well.” The airport and its immediate surroundings, about 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres), are being designated a free zone for foreign and local investors to set up warehouses, maintenance hangars and other industries, Wickremasuriya said.

Work began in 2011 for the Mattala International airport (MIA), located within Hambantota district, but it is being re-named after the president as Mahinda Rajapakse International Airport (MRIA).

The first flight is to be operated by the national carrier, Sri Lankan Airlines. China's Export-Import Bank funded the airport which can handle a million passengers a year. China also funded the $1.5-billion sea port opened for commercial shipping in Hambantota last year.

The first foreign carrier to fly to MRIA will be Air Arabia which has announced twice weekly flights to Sharjah from Mattala, about 270 kilometres (168 miles) south of Colombo by road.

First direct Cairo-Tehran flight in over 30 years

The first direct flight connecting Egypt and Iran in more than 30 years took off from Cairo International Airport on Saturday, airport officials told AFP.

The Air Memphis plane, chartered by Egyptian businessman Ramy Lakah, is the first direct flight between the capitals since the two countries severed ties after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The flight, which was carrying the Iranian charge d'affaires and his family to Tehran, will then fly back to Egypt's southern city of Aswan, airport officials said.

Egyptian officials said recently that scheduled charter flights between Iran and Egypt would be announced soon, but no date has yet been set.

Civil Aviation Minister Wael El-Maadawy had said the flights would link the historic cities of Luxor, Aswan, and Abu Simbel in southern Egypt with the Islamic republic.

Iran has been reaching out to Egypt since Islamists came to power in the wake of the 2011 revolution that ousted veteran president Hosni Mubarak, a staunch critic of Tehran.

Earlier this month, Egypt and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to promote tourism between the two countries.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the first Iranian president to visit Cairo in more than 30 years, was given a red-carpet welcome by Islamist President Mohamed Morsi when he arrived in February. Morsi, who hails from the powerful Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, has attended a Non-Aligned Summit in Iran, becoming the first Egyptian president to travel to Tehran since the Islamic revolution.

AFP