TIRUCHI: SriLankan Airlines is in talks with the Tourism Department to promote tourism in Tamil Nadu and to bring more foreign tourists through its airline network to the State.

A memorandum of understanding will be signed shortly, Mohan de S. Meegolle, Manager (Tamil Nadu and Karnataka), SriLankan Airlines, told reporters here on Wednesday.

This arrangement would help to bring more tourists to Tamil Nadu from the countries, including Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom, where the Tamils live in large numbers.

The airline recently entered into a similar agreement with Kerela's Tourism Department. Steps would be initiated soon for a similar arrangement with the Karnataka Tourism Department, he said.

Mr. Mohan said SriLankan Airlines was the largest foreign carrier operating to India, with 95 weekly flights to 10 destinations. It was operating 25 flights a week to two destinations in Tamil Nadu (Chennai-15 and Tiruchi-10) and 32 flights to three destinations in Kerala (Tiruvananthapuram-13, Kozhikode-8 and Kochi-11), besides two flights a day to Mumbai and daily services to Bangalore, Hyderabad and New Delhi. Recently, it introduced `winter only' schedule to Goa from Colombo. The response was overwhelming. The schedule had been extended and the airline was operating three flights a week to Goa.

Mr. Mohan said though the airline was interested in covering more destinations in India, including Coimbatore, Madurai and Mangalore in South India, its present strategy was to strengthen the existing schedule.

"Our vision of the near future is to increase the weekly schedule from 95 to 100. Introducing two flights a day to Tiruchi is also being considered." The airline was growing by 10 per cent in both cargo and passenger traffic to India every year. Indians were the biggest tourist force to the island nation. The Sri Lankan Tourism Board was expecting 1.30 lakh tourists from India this calendar year.

The airline offered a special tourist package of Rs. 9,999 to the island nation from its Indian destinations from March to May. This proved a big hit. It planned similar packages from September to November.

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