Thaindian News

Colombo, Oct 28 (IANS) One of the popular tourist attractions in Sri Lanka’s tourism calendar, “World Spice Food Festival” kicked off along a Colombo street Friday.

Started in 2005, “World Spice Food Festival-2011″ steered up for the fifth successful year incorporating a “Global Spice Food Village” to enhance the event that will showcase the culinary expertise from around the world, an official told Xinhua.

“Our aim is to create more dining options for both local and international tourists and eventually making it an event which would influence decisively on holiday destination choices by international tourists,” said Chandana Wijeratne, deputy director of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Authority.

“The highlight of almost week long food festival, is at the Green Path in capital Colombo from Oct 28 to 30. It allows visitors and food lovers to participate with easy access and facility of browsing through international theme cuisines food stalls along with friends and families,” said Wijeratne.

With the food festival, the lighted street will take on a festive air with live music and cookery demonstrations, cooking competition and special cultural performances starting from 6.00 p.m. onwards.

A total of 11 signature chefs from various parts of the world including India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Italy, Vietnam, South Africa, the Philippines and China are to perform their culinary skills, Wijeratne said.

With the end of 30 years’ civil war in 2009, the Sri Lankan government targets to boost tourism making it one of the main foreign income generators.

In the nine months to September 2011, total arrivals rose by 34.3 percent to 598,006 from a year earlier, helped by surging arrivals from India and China, though the number of British visitors fell, official data showed.