Cox & Kings eyes Colombo push post elections

Cox and Kings, one of the leading and oldest global travel companies is betting on Sri Lanka in the wake of numbers coming out of India, the highest into this island nation and were eying the upcoming elections results.

At Cox and Kings “we place a large bet on Sri Lanka,” the company’s Relationships and Supplier Management Head Karan Anand said in at a media briefing held in Colombo this week.

Cox and Kings has appointed Aitken Spence Travels as its Preferred Sales Agent (PSA) in Sri Lanka to handle inbound tours and outbound holidays. He noted that they were looking at increasing the Indian traffic into Sri Lanka that was already doing well posting the highest arrivals. Offering services for the Free Individual Traveller (FITs), group and MICE tourists other source markets that were likely to be tapped for this destination are the UK, Japan and the Middle East, he said.

Moreover, Mr. Anand pointed out that they were keenly awaiting the results of the upcoming elections with the endeavour to sell and market Sri Lanka as a composite holiday destination.

With the thrust mainly for traffic out of India, Cox and Kings expects to enhance its capacity and expect Sri Lan- ka to increase its visibility through an effective marketing campaign and increased bilateral cooperation in the airline business and continued political stability, he explained.

Mr. Anand said they believed the destination was “ready for a large surge in tourism not only from the world but mainly from India.” In this respect, he pointed out that the large traffic and volumes out of India was short haul for less than three hours had immense potential which could also be realised for traffic out of Sri Lanka into India as well.

Aitken Spence Travels Managing Director Nalin Jayasundera said they were likely to see a surge in their tourist traffic with this tie up as Cox and Kings has a good network and distribution channel out of India to Sri Lanka.

He noted that in respect of the volumes they generate Aitken Spence could have an advantage and could increase the numbers considerably and grab the opportunity to get into the source markets in which Cox and Kings is operating.

Cox and Kings is a leading brand in India with a presence in over 150 locations. Globally, its wide network spans Europe, Middle East, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.