SL in talks with world"s biggest travel firm - nation.lk

Six dreamliners at Mattala Airport soon

Sri Lanka is negotiating with German based multinational travel and tourism company, TUI AG to relocate operations as they are shifting their operations, partly from Egypt, partly from Thailand, and so on, Senior Minister for International Monetary Cooperation and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning told foreign investors last week. TUI AG, headquartered in Hannover, is one of the world’s largest tourist firms with interests across Europe. It owns travel agencies, hotels, airlines, cruise ships and retail stores. Major subsidiaries include TUI AG Airlines, the largest holiday fleet in Europe, and UK-based tour operators Thomson.

Addressing the ‘Invest Sri Lanka’ Investor Forum held in Singapore at The Ritz Carlton, Millennia, the Senior Minister said Sri Lanka will also soon see six dream liners coming in with chartered traffic at the new Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport located in the South.

“So that will put faith to some of the criticisms, to why did you have a second airport? We want a second airport, because we have really ambitious targets when it comes to tourism and our exports. Then look at the harbor in Hambantota in the southwest region. You will be surprised to hear that absolutely two-thirds of the world’s shipping, and I don’t make any qualification, just quantitative wise, two-thirds of the world’s shipping, because of the oil shipments mainly go past our harbor of Hambantota throughout the year. So these are the potentialities, there are so many applications to start refineries, start storage facilities, so these are aspects that you must take into account the investments we have made are beginning to kick in,” Dr. Amunugama said delivering a presentation at the event attended by over 200 institutional investors.

SL in talks with world"s biggest travel firm - nation.lk