On 26 February 2020, the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Russia hosted an Information Seminar followed by a live cooking demo in collaboration with the Tourism Promotion Bureau of Sri Lanka, Rossiya airline and Aeroflot in order to raise awareness among Russian travelers on Sri Lanka tourism. The event was attended by more than 50 participants including tour agents, travel companies, bloggers and representatives of Russian Mass Media.

Addressing the gathering Mr. Mohamed Anas, Charge d'Affaires of the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Moscow highlighted the range of options in destinations for tourists in Sri Lanka and outlined the Mission's plan for the year 2020, conducting a series of tourism-oriented activities, targeting 100,000 tourists from Russian Federation. Accordingly, the Seminar has become the inaugural step in number of tourism promotion events scheduled to be held this year.
Ms. Chathurika Perera, Second Secretary (Commercial) of the Embassy introduced authenticity, compactness and diversity of the island through the presentation on Sri Lanka. Ms. Perera underlined that in 2019 the island was visited by 86,549 tourists with Russian passports. Russia showed increase in tourists' arrivals to Sri Lanka by 34% in comparison to 2018 and was the only country among top-ten source states with positive dynamics.
Mr. Sergey Starikov, spokesman of Rossiya Airlines reported on the constant interest demonstrated by Russian tourists in Russia-Sri Lanka direction, which resulted in expansion of the flight programme from 21 to 44 flights per month. In his presentation Mr. Starikov underscored that in 2019 Rossiya airlines had carried over 70 000 passengers on its Moscow – Colombo direct flights.
In her conclusion remarks Ms. Nirosha Herath, Second Secretary (Political) extended gratitude to the audience for the growing engagement in promoting Sri Lanka in Russia.
The official part was followed by an interactive cooking show presented by enthusiastic Sri Lankan collegues and Ms. Anoma Weerasuriya. Sri Lankan traditional cuisine and pure Ceylon tea degustation received a lot of praise from the gathering.
At the end of the Seminar all guests received tea gifts representing 7 unique tastes from 7 regions of the island where it was produced.