The Chief Guest at the inauguration was the Tourism Minister of Thailand while the Guest of Honour was the Tourism Minister of Sri Lanka, John Amaratunga who received an enthusiastic welcome from the capacity crowd that was present.

Later on Minister Amaratunga declared opened the Sri Lanka Booth, which was the cynosure at the travel fair. Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau made use of the opportunity to launch a promotional microsite highlighting the Buddhist trail in Sri Lanka. The microsite consists of the main Buddhist tourism attractions in the country, meditation centers and facilities available to learn Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

The microsite was launched by Minister Amaratunga along with Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Thailand, Kshenuka Seneviratne, President of the Thai Travel Agents Association, Thanaphon Cheewarattanaporn and Chairman, Tourism Advisory Committee, Harry Jayawardena. Meanwhile Minister Amaratunga and the Sri Lankan delegation met President of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, Vichat Prakobgosol on the sidelines of the Travel Fair.

The two parties discussed ways and means of increasing the number of arrivals to Sri Lanka from Thailand. Thai Travel agents emphasized that relaxation of visa requirements will help increase arrivals. The Thai travel agents pointed out that outbound traffic from Thailand to Japan increased by over one million when Japan granted visa on arrival to Thai nationals.