Sri Lankan Airline's new destination Russia 

Sri Lankan Airlines’ 52nd destination will be the Russian Capital when it commences a new service to Moscow on 16th September 2011.It will commence operations via Dubai initially with two flights per week on Thursdays and Saturdays. "We are delighted to announce the launch of services to Moscow. This will be the first time in history that our national carrier has served Russia, and will no doubt serve to strengthen the close relationship between our two nations, to a great extent" said  SriLankan Airlines Chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe,

Sri Lankan Airlines launched services to Shanghai in July 2010, Guangzhou in January and Kochi in March expanding its services steadily over the past several months.

Tourism in Sri Lanka has been booming since 2009 after the dawn of peace in the country.  Accordingly, tourist arrivals from Russia grew from 21% in the first quarter of 2010 and by 22% from other countries in Eastern Europe.

Now Asia is fast becoming an attractive destination for travelers from Russia, the world's fastest growing outbound tourist market.  The World Tourism & Travel Council data shows that Russia is well placed to become one of the world's travel and tourism powerhouses by 2016.