SRI LANKA. The Travel Retail Village, built thanks to post-tsunami fundraising from the travel retail industry, is now nearing completion with the Grand Opening planned for 16 March 2006.
Extending an invitation to attend the handover of the keys to the 20 rehoused families, organiser Rakhita Jayawardena said: “Rakhita and Paul [Topping, co-organiser] take great pleasure in extending a warm welcome and invitation to all their friends and colleagues who have participated in the Travel Retail Village project, to be present at the historic ceremonial function when the 20 houses will be handed over to the families.”
The top 20 supporters of the Travel Retail Village (companies and/or individuals) will have a house named after them and it is planned for a representative from each company to hand over the keys to the respective families at the opening.
The top 20 supporters are as follows:
Rank Company
1 King Power Hong Kong
2 Dubai Duty Free
3 MEDFA
4 Pernod Ricard
5 Alpha Airports Group
6 Centaur Travel Retail
7 ASUTIL
8 TFWA
9 The Moodie Report
10 Raven Fox
11 L’Oréal
12 John Kammerman
13 John Sutcliffe
14 Albert Bichot
15 BAT
16 Altadis
17 Diageo
18 Alpha Asia
19 World Duty Free
20 Friends of the World (other donors)
“The Friends of the World house represents all the other donors who have contributed to make it happen,” explained Jayawardena.
The appeal launched at the soft opening on 12 January to raise funds to furnish the houses has made great progress, with nearly 50% of the requirements already met through generous contributions. In addition to his prior personal contributions, John Kammerman has made a further contribution of US$2,000 towards the furnishing of a house and has also been instrumental in collecting a further US$4,000 from UETA of Panama’s Leon Falic and Henry Chen of Mercuries Fu Boa towards furnishing two more homes.
Alan Edwards, Martin Moodie, Jonathan Holland, APTRA and the Travel Retail Friendship Club have all contributed US$2,000 each towards furnishings. Joel Lafon and Sunil Tuli have also donated US$1,000 each.
“We are very grateful to all these individuals for their spontaneous and warm gestures and we are certain that they’ll be very proud when they see the householders enjoying with gratitude their furnished houses,” said Jayawardena and Topping.
The Travel Retail Village is situated near the seaside community of Palliyawatta, which was completely destroyed by the tsunami on 26 December 2004. It was funded by travel retail industry donations to the Alpha Sri Lanka Tsunami Relief Fund. The Fund was the joint brainchild of industry executives Paul Topping and Rakhita Jayawardena, and has raised around US$400,000 to buy land to rehouse the people of Palliyawatta.
MORE STORIES ON THE TRAVEL RETAIL VILLAGE
Poignant scenes as Travel Retail Village celebrates soft opening in Sri Lanka – 12/01/06
Travel Retail Village takes shape in Sri Lanka – 26/08/05
A new foundation, a new beginning: The Travel Retail Village takes shape – 14/07/05
