Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU Ravinatha Aryasinha has said, “Sri Lanka is today one of the safest destinations in the world a tourist can expect to fly to”. The Ambassador made this observation when he addressed passengers traveling to Sri Lanka on the maiden Brussels-Colombo direct flight, at a departure ceremony held on Saturday (30 October 2010) at the Brussels International Airport.

The Ambassador who noted that “tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka from Belgium had increased by 82.8% up to September this year, said this compared well with the 50% increase recorded from Europe, and the 44% recorded from around the world, in the same period". Commending Jetairfly and Thomas Cook for being one of the first European collaborations to re-commence direct flights to Sri Lanka, he said it will be a huge boost to the marketing of the destination not only in Belgium, but also in the entire BENELUX region (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg) and would result in an exponential growth in tourists to Sri Lanka from these countries. He urged the visitors to Sri Lanka, to on their return, share their experience with others, so that more will be encouraged to make the journey, which will strengthen the people-to-people bonds between Europe and Sri Lanka.

The Ambassador later joined Mr. Jos Stroobants, Director/ Brussels Airport, Mr. Elie Bruyninckx Chairman Jetairfly and Mr. Marc Van de Wal, Director,Thomas Cook Belgium, in cutting a ribbon at the boarding gate to formally inaugurate the flight.