May 03, 2011 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's Expolanka Holdings and Akquasun Group based in Mumbai have formed a joint venture called Akquasun Lanka to focus on attracting tourists from emerging markets like India, Russia and China.
The two companies plan to develop a 'business-to-business' regional destination management network, a statement said.
Akquasun Lanka will be a component of the transportation cluster of the Expolanka group which also includes Luxe Asia and Classic Travels.
“Russia, China and India are huge markets; population density has always been there, but with newfound prosperity new travel trends have developed," said Hanif Yusoof, group chief executive of Expolanka Holdings.
A particular emphasis of Akquasun Lanka will be the development of the emerging inbound markets of India, Russia and China where they own and operate their own offices.
“Sri Lanka is a rapidly emerging market”, said Aslam Rahim, group director of Akquasun Holidays.
Akquasun Group has offices in India, Mauritius, Maldives, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Russia and China and doers both inbound and outbound tourism in all of these countries.
“Being just a local tour distributor is fast becoming an outdated concept in the global travel market. Diversification is the key to progress, especially in the 'B-to-B' sector,” said Rahim.
The company has hired staff fluent in the languages of foreign tourists from the target markets.
“We have employed agents who have both experience and fluency in Chinese and Russian," said Chaminda Dias, executive director of Akquasun Lanka.
"They have a better idea than anyone else of what our clients will expect from a trip to Sri Lanka."
Expolanka Holdings, a diversified conglomerate with interests in transportation, manufacturing, international trading and strategic investments, plans to raise 2.4 billion rupees by issuing 172 million ordinary voting shares at 14 rupees each in an initial public offer on May 12.
source - www.lbo.lk
No comments:
Post a Comment