He noted that they together with the golf clubs were looking at the possibility of promoting golf along with leisure. Golfers are high spenders, he pointed out adding that they also hope to attract some international golf tournaments to the country as well in a bid to create an interest among golf players and enthusiasts to visit the country and tour the destination with their families when holidaying at the same time.

Mr. Balasubramaniam explained that these two concepts were good to be combined as otherwise it would not be easy to attract golfers to visit the country. The visiting journalists are on a five-day tour of the country and would be visiting some of the key attractions in the name of golf. Sri Lanka hopes to attract holidaymakers from Europe, Australia, China, Japan and West Asia that would be interested in playing a round of golf while vacationing with family or friends. Moreover, the MD pointed out that this type of promotion is likely to position Sri Lanka as a destination that caters to upmarket visitors.

Meanwhile, the government has now completed the selection of the agencies from the respective markets for its digital campaign to promote tourism in Sri Lanka. However, prior to submitting the nominations for Cabinet approval authorities have to respond to the unsuccessful bidders and send out “No Objection” letters to them.

In this respect, it was noted that it was likely to take about two weeks time before the Cabinet paper could be submitted and thereafter awarding of the bidders is expected by end of August, the MD stated. He also noted that according to the current schedule they were likely to get the campaign underway by late September.