Meeting for Association of Russian Tour Operators (ATOR) at the Embassy
02 July, 2009
General Meeting of Association of Russian Tour Operators (ATOR) took place at the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Moscow on 02.07.2009. This is the first time such a meeting was held outside of their usual place. ATOR is the non-government organization which was founded on 18th of January 2007 by the main Russian tour operators. There are more than 50 members of the Group at the moment from different regions of Russia. They accumulate 70% of volume of the Russian travel market.
Ambassador of Sri Lanka Udayanga Weeratunga delivered the keynote addressed and short note about Sri Lanka hot spots and mentioned that the recent victory brought a great opportunity for tourism industry and year 2011 was declared as “Visit Sri Lanka“. Ambassador explained the developing opportunity of Eastern and Northern provinces together with Sri Lankan plans to increase the number of tourist up to 2.5 million of people in 2016.
There were over 30 members from TEZ Tour, Intaer, Astravel, Intourist, Russian Express, Valtex Travel, Lanta-Tur Voyage, Paraisol, KMP Group, Megapolus Group, Startravel, Russian Railways Tours, Solvex Tour, Neva, Capital Tour, Inna Tour, Biblio-Globus, ITC Group, UTS Travel, BSI group, VKO Group, ICS Group, Coral Travel, Pegas Touristic, Natalie Tours, Space Travel, Express Line Travel, S7 Tour, Sunmar, Spectrum Travel, Pac Group.
AGEM commenced with the lightning of the traditional lamp and at the end of the meeting Ambassador hosted a dinner. Ambassador expressed his perfect willingness to support the unified Russian tour operator’s standards and wished prosperity to all members of Association. Finally, Sri Lankan Tea ceremony was conducted and all guests were presented with the best Sri Lankan tea from the Ambassador.
