A taste of Sri Lanka burst into Melbourne this week amidst a sea of colour and much fanfare with a SriLankan Airlines pre-launch event celebrating the introduction of Melbourne to Colombo direct daily flights from late October.
Sri Lanka’s finest drummers launched proceedings literally with a bang at Crown Promenade on Tuesday night, followed by a traditional candle lighting ceremony hosted by a local Sri Lankan dance troupe.
The Consulate General of Sri Lanka, Mr Prasanna Gamage, welcomed guests from the travel industry who were lucky enough to win holidays to the Maldives, India and Sri Lanka while enjoying Sri Lankan themed food and the sub continent country’s renowned hospitality.
SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of Sri Lanka and a member of the oneworld alliance, will be establishing its presence in Australia with daily non-stop services to Melbourne commencing October 29 this year.
Home away from home for Sri Lankans
Australia is home to one of the largest Sri Lankan expatriate communities, many of whom reside in and around Melbourne. That, combined with the tremendous potential for business travel and Victoria’s growing student population, helped convince the airline to set about launching non-stop daily services to Melbourne.
The non-stop services will also facilitate passengers from the Middle East and South Asia seeking onward connectivity via Colombo to/from Australia.
“Our presence in Australia cements the long-standing relationship between our two countries,” said Suren Ratwatte, SriLankan Airlines’ Chief Executive Officer.
“We recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our nations, and the addition of Melbourne signifies our strategy of optimizing the Airline’s network in line with our restructuring. This also means that we have connected another continent to our global route map.
“On the other hand, given the number of Sri Lankans residing in and around Victoria, we fulfill a long felt need for a direct service. We are proud to welcome all the diverse residents of Victoria who can now enjoy the direct connections when visiting their friends and families throughout our network.”
Daily direct Melbourne to Colombo
The Airline will be operating Airbus 330-200 aircraft on the route. The flights depart Melbourne daily from 4.55pm and arrive in Colombo 10.15pm. Flights depart Colombo 11.50pm and arrive in Melbourne 3.25pm.
Melissa Byron, CT Connections Travel Group’s National Operations Manager, said the daily flights open the door for “great opportunities” for corporate travellers, events and incentive travel, and holidayers in general.
“As a travel management company, we’re really excited about the direct daily service to Colombo because it provides better accessibility to a year-round holiday destination,” she told TDL.
“There’s a growing number of Australians, business travellers and holidayers in general, showing an interest in Sri Lanka which is a very on-trend destination. It cuts travel times between the two countries and Sri Lanka obviously appeals as a family holiday destination and for couples looking to escape for the wilderness, coastline, as well as food, cultural and history experiences.
“Then, of course, there are the opportunities for incentive travel and events. It’s such a beautiful place with some really high quality properties available including Four Seasonse and Shangri-la to name a couple.”
Sri Lanka is the size of Tasmania with a population of 21 million, the same as Australia. It’s become more than the flavour of the month, as seasoned travel writer and pre-launch party guest speaker Belinda Jackson so eloquently pointed out on the night: “It’s said at the beginning of the world when Adam was expelled from Eden and his feet touched the ground in Sri Lanka. It really is a little paradise and Sri Lanka in Sanskrit means resplendent island, so there’s a lot of great PR happening for the destination before the PR machine even begins.”
Belinda touched on just some of the highlights gleaned from her own travel experiences in Sri Lanka, including great sightseeing and wildlife.
“Sri Lanka is great for families, incredible rail journeys and wonderful opportunities to stay in some traditional manor houses and obviously great hotels. The country has a range of gifts from cultural to beach holidays and wilderness. The island is riddled with UNESCO world heritage sights such as Adam’s Peak, which Buddhists believe the footprint to be that of Buddha before he ascended into paradise, and is a place of worship. It’s also said to be a place where butterflies go to die.
“Leopards are everywhere, too. Strewn over branches like scarves, playing with their babies. Then the beautiful peacocks and water buffalo, while the birdlife in the national parks is exceptional.”
SriLankan connectivity strength
Siva Ramachandran, SriLankan Airlines Chief Commercial Officer, said: “Despite the absence of direct connections, we have witnessed a steady increase in passengers travelling between Colombo and Melbourne via various Asian connecting points such as Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Our direct services will give us a definite advantage as SriLankan is the only carrier that is able to offer connectivity of this nature at this time. We also offer seamless onward connections beyond Colombo to a range of destinations in the Indian Sub-Continent and Middle East.
“With the launch of the new services, SriLankan Airlines’ passengers will also have the choice of flying to other Australian cities such as Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide as well as Auckland, New Zealand. SriLankan Airlines will continue to explore potential expansion opportunities across its network in order to facilitate the envisaged growth in business.”
Stimulating two-way tourism
Bryce Hutchesson, Australia’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Bryce Hutchesson says direct air connections between countries stimulate two-way tourism, business, trade and people-to-people exchange which are the core ingredients for a vibrant bilateral relationship.
“We are seeing a growing number of Australians looking to travel to Sri Lanka for tourism and business, and to reconnect with family. And we welcome the growing number of Sri Lankans travelling to Australia for education, business, to explore Australia’s culture and natural wonders, and of course to catch up with family and friends,” he said.
Sri Lanka, on the other hand, offers heritage, wildlife as well as adventure sports and surfing hotspots for the adventurous Australian traveller. Over the years, the two countries have shared a mutual passion in cricket, which has inspired fans to travel the distance in support of their respective home teams.
More importantly, Australia accounts for one of the largest Sri Lankan communities living outside Sri Lanka, out of which almost 50 per cent lives in and around Victoria, making Melbourne the convenient terminus for their departures and arrivals.
For the convenience of travellers seeking onward connectivity from its Colombo hub, SriLankan connects over 10 Indian points with over 100 flights a week, which includes services to/from Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Trivandrum, Tiruchirappalli, Cochin, Mumbai and New Delhi. SriLankan will be adding Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore and Hyderabad to its route network in July this year, further expanding its presence in India.
The airline’s Middle Eastern services include over 50 weekly flights to/from nine Middle Eastern destinations, including daily services out of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha, Riyadh, Muscat, Bahrain and Kuwait. It also offers passengers the option of exploring popular holiday destinations such as Seychelles and Maldives Male and Gan Island.
These operations will further complement the existing double daily services offered by SriLankan Airlines between Sri Lanka and Australia via Singapore and Kuala Lumpur with its codeshare partners Qantas and Malaysia Airlines.
Call your CT Connections travel advisor today for all your travel arrangements.
