TAAI 2005

First Ever WOMAD Sri Lanka Festival of Drums To Perform At TAAI 2005

ET&T STAFF - Mumbai

Udaya Nanayakkara

WOMAD Sri Lanka Festival of Drums is scheduled to take place from September 21 to 25, 2005. Udaya Nanayakkara, chairman, Sri Lanka Tourist Board, said, "A major international festival of this kind needs to be held in a climate of total recovery. For the Festival of Drums to be a true bounce back celebration, we need to ensure that we are showing our best face to the world again - with the guarantee to provide the unique style of Sri Lanka hospitality we are famous for. And, as this is the inaugural WOMAD Sri Lanka Festival of Drums, it is even more important that we have fully recovered. This is primarily why we have decided to present the Festival on the later dates of the month of September."

Speaking about the festival and their role, WOMAD's, artistic director, Thomas Brooman, said, "We are thrilled to be able to bring WOMAD to Sri Lanka, and excited also at the fact that this is the first time in our twenty-two years of festival presentation that we have been able to present a festival of drums. We are very proud to work with the Sri Lanka Tourist Board in this positive way during September and we sincerely hope that many of our established festival audience will decide to visit this beautiful country as a result of the festival".

From 21 to 25 September, some of the world's most talented master drummers and percussionists will gather for the WOMAD (World of Music Arts and Dance) Sri Lanka Festival of Drums.

The Festival will feature:

• An outdoor concert at the Royal Peradeniya Botanical Gardens in Kandy.
• Four indoor theatre concerts at Bishop's College Auditorium and four Club Night Sessions at The Gallery, Beira Lake in the capital Colombo. Workshops will also be held in the daytime at The Gallery as an opportunity to meet and learn from the artists appearing at the festival.
• A lively 'festival field' on Colombo's Galle Face Green, forming the main outdoor area of the festival, with performances on the saturday and sunday. This space will also feature a global village of crafts, textiles and musical instruments, as well as selection of Sri Lankan, Asian and other international cuisine. WOMAD Sri Lanka Festival of Drums is considered to be one of the highlights of this year's tourism calendar of Sri Lanka. Celebrating the island's 2,500 year-long association with drums, the festival will showcase at least 14 different groups and artists from 12 different countries including Bill Cobham (USA), The Dhol Foundation (UK and India) and the Drummers of Burundi. The event is designed to become an annual event, and will put Sri Lanka on the map among world music lovers internationally, added Nanayakkara.

"A festival of this kind has the potential to attract music lovers from around the globe, and once here, I am sure they will relish the opportunity to stay on and take advantage of all that Sri Lanka has to offer. The WOMAD Sri Lanka Festival of Drums will become the Sri Lanka equivalent to the famous Glastonbury Festival." He also stressed the importance of the festival, not only to visitors to the island, but to the Sri Lankan people. The coordination of the local drumming and dancing performance will have a distinct Sri Lankan flavour, reflecting the huge cultural diversity of traditions throughout the country.

COMMENTS
B P Kanuga honorary secretary general, TAAI The 54th TAAI convention's theme `New Waves-New Ways' is an apt one in the constantly changing scenario of the travel and tourism industry. The numerous changes that have hit those in this segment needs to be evaluated in its totality and up-gradations arrived upon from time to time. The convention thus becomes an important forum to discuss serious issues and seek realistic solutions. Mergers, innovations, hi-tech software-all lead to new ways of functioning and these new waves of changes are welcome. We are confident that Colombo will carry it off well and all will come home with a feeling of fruitfulness and conviction.	K S Kohli honorary treasurer, TAAI Now that India has gone global, we need to rectify our working style and adopt new ones. This year we decided to take the convention to Colombo because we thought, what would be a better way than holding our annual convention, to show our solidarity towards the country after the Tsunami disaster. This way we stand by our aim to promote regional tourism. As for this year's theme-New Waves, New Ways-well, it's got nothing to do with Tsunami but it's appropriate in the present situation where things are moving fast and furious and we need to keep up with the challenging times by devising new ways.	J G Arora member, TAAI The 54th TAAI convention at Colombo will provide a forum to deliberate on issues that plagues the industry and help our members to seize the opportunities that arises out of the changes taking place in the sector. We'll deliberate on issues that we non-existent in the past and chart out growth paths for the next three to four years. We zeroed in on Colombo as the venue because it was pocket friendly and the help extended by the Ministry of Tourism, Sri Lanka and SLTB has been tremendous.
Iqbal Mulla member, TAAI With the wheels of change churning rapidly in the industry, the TAAI convention this year will bring to table core industry issues, highlight the obstacles and show ways to solve them. That's keeping with this year's theme-New Waves, New Ways. We want to tell the industry that it's the waves that come first and then it's up to you to find the ways to make the most of them. Our business sessions will revolve around issues that are pertinent to the industry and will help educate our members to adopt new ideas be it new opportunities in the MICE segment, entertainment or in developing new packages.	K Bettaiah member, TAAI This year, the discussions at TAAI would revolve around the agents/airlines relationship and the survival of both through mutual cooperation. We also take the onus of educating the agent community on how to diversify their activities. In India, a majority of the travellers still prefer the services of recognised travel agents. We'll help local agents to overcome this factor by updating. Besides this, we also plan to inform the governments (both Central and States) about speeding up work on the infrastructure front. We'll highlight the perils of the dual tariff system followed by airlines and star hotels.