SriLankan Airlines named 'Airline of the Year'
SriLankan Airlines has once again been named 'Airline of the Year' for its overall contribution to the country's tourism industry at the Presidential Awards for Travel and Tourism 2009, the second successive year that the airline won this title in the country's highest accolades for the airline, travel and leisure sectors.
SriLankan Holidays, the National Carrier's leisure arm, picked up the award for 'Outbound Tour Operator of the Year', also for the second consecutive time.
The National Carrier has long been in the forefront of promoting Sri Lanka as a travel destination around the world, and brought in nearly half of the 447,890 foreign tourists who visited Sri Lanka in 2009, three times as many as the second placed airline, and five times as many as the airline in third place.
This was in addition to carrying the vast majority of Sri Lankans who travel abroad, including those in the leisure, labour, business, student, pilgrim, and government travel sectors; plus hundreds of thousands of foreign travellers who transit Colombo en route to other destinations. The Presidential Awards were presented at a glittering ceremony at the BMICH in Colombo on June 15, and were organised by the Ministry of Economic Development in partnership with Sri Lanka Tourism.
The airline's multi-faceted promotional efforts to promote tourism into Sri Lanka include campaigns on-board, at travel marts, and specialised brochures, posters, hoardings, the internet, newspapers, radio, and television. It also provides special travel fares and packages, particularly during the off-season.
SriLankan is about to extend its global route network to 49 destinations in 31 countries, with the launch of services to Shanghai on 1st July.
(Source: Lanka Times – 26th June, 2010)