MONETABRIEF – Vietnam's Vietravel, a publicly listed travel company, is planning to set up an office in Sri Lanka after Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air start direct flights to Colombo this August, an official said.

Vietnam Airlines is starting direct flights on August 16 and Vietjet Air on August 18.

"A direct flight connection is far more than a new route on the map," Vietravel South Asia Director Alex Ngai Hoang told a business forum in Colombo.

"It's a bridge connecting people, culture, businesses, and opportunities. It will make travel easier, encourage greater tourism flows, and open new possibilities for investment and economic cooperation.

"At Vietravel, we see this as a strategic milestone."

Vietravel started in 1992 with a handful of employees as a state enterprise. It is now a publicly traded company in the Upcom market.

The company handles about a million tourists in and out of Vietnam, with 1,300 permanent staff, Deputy Director for Inbound, Ngo Ming Quan said.

It has offices in Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, France, India, Australia, USA. Vietravel is also in the process of setting up an office in Dubai.

A Vietravel office will be set up in Sri Lanka in the last quarter of 2026 or early 2027 Quan said.

Though holidays to Asian destinations tended to be short, and Vietravel usually offered longer holidays to Europe, there was potential to offer multi-destination packages from Sri Lanka, combining Maldives.

"Right now, if we are pretty confident that we can promote Sri Lanka and make it a hub," Quan told MonetaBrief.

"And bring people here for 4-5 days. And then to Maldives."

Sri Lanka could be made into a tourism hub as the country had a very easy visa process, and there were multiple connections to the Maldives, Quan said.

Vietnamese companies tend to have an outward global orientation, unlike many others especially in South Asia, who have an inward-looking nationalist outlook, analysts who have studied the country say.

Most Vietnam-based travel agents offer multi-country Indochina tours combining Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and also Thailand based on customer needs.

Vietjet Air, after initially starting Ho Chi Minh City to Colombo flights, is planning to extend the flights to Maldives, Vietnam Ambassador to Colombo, Trinh Thi Tam said.

Weekly frequencies to Colombo are likely to expand to five when the Maldives route is opened, Udeni Perera, the head of marketing at its General Sales Agency in Colombo said.

"The success of the new direct flights will depend not only on allies, but also on governments, tourism minorities, travel companies, hotels, and destination partners working together," Vietravel's Hoang said.

"VietTravel is fully committed to working closely with Sri Lankan travel companies to develop attractive two-way travel products."

Though Sri Lanka and Vietnam signed a bilateral air services agreement in 1992, it took 34 years to "realize the dream of having direct flights", Ambassador Tam said.

So far this year around 4,500 Vietnamese had visited Sri Lanka and 9,000 Sri Lankans had travelled to Vietnam.

"Tourism exchanges between Vietnam and Sri Lanka have remained below the true potential and our expectations, given our longstanding friendship of more than 55 years of diplomatic relations," she said.

"One of the major reasons has been the lack of direct air connectivity. This August, we will witness a historic milestone in our bilateral relations."

With direct flights a bridge is constructed, Sri Lanka's Deputy Minister of Tourism Ruwan Ranasinghe said.

"So once the bridge is constructed, like linking two banks of river, speople will travel back and forth, and the new connections will be established, cultures will be shared, and the relationships - lasting relationships - will be built." (Colombo/July31/2026)