Deputy Minister for Tourism Faizer Musthapha visited London for a campaign to promote tourism in Sri Lanka.

After a successful tour to Kuwait and Dubai, he arrived in London last week to explore greater market opportunities in UK for Sri Lankan tourism.

Minister Musthapha said as the World Travel Market would be taking place in London in November, he took the opportunity to visit the UK from the Middle East to explore the possibilities to attract more and more tourists from the UK to Sri Lanka.

Speaking to the Sunday Island, he said he had a meeting with the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in London Nihal Jayasinghe and planned out a strategy to team up both the Sri Lanka Tourist Board and the High Commission to promote Sri Lanka in a more focused manner.

"I am also planning to invite more British journalists to Sri Lanka so that they can see for themselves the ground situation", Musthapha noted.

He said that he is also having discussions with a company promoting popular tourist destinations, to assist the Tourist Board.

Minister Musthapha invited the Sri Lanka diaspora to visit their motherland as oftern as possible as it would help both the country as well as the national carrier, SriLankan Airlines.

  Talking about his visit to Kuwait and Dubai, he said he encouraged the Arabs to tour Sri Lanka and had some fruitful discussions with the Travel Agents in the Middle East. "I also urged hoteliers there to offer more job opportunities to Sri Lankans with the objective of reducing unemployment in Sri Lanka".