Damith Perera
Founder & CEO
damith@ceylontravelconnect.comAbout Ceylon Travel Connect
A small company with a long memory of the island.
We plan private journeys across Sri Lanka for people who would rather see it with someone who lives here. Fewer stops. Better hotels. The same planner from the first email to the last transfer.
- Based
- Colombo 06
- Languages
- English, Sinhala, Tamil
Our story
We started with one car and a habit of over-planning.
No. 17 Stratford Avenue
Colombo 06, Sri Lanka
The company began after years working for large tour operators in Colombo, watching good journeys get flattened into fixed departures: the same seven hotels, the same three guides, the same eight-day loop sold to everyone who asked.
The idea was simple. Take fewer guests, ask better questions, and build the journey around the answers. Book the family-run places we actually like. Use guides who are paid properly and know when to stop talking.
That is still the shape of the business. We are a small team in Colombo, working with around forty guides and drivers across the island. We take a limited number of journeys each month, which means we sometimes say no — usually because someone else can serve you better, or because we already have too much on that week.
“If we wouldn’t send a friend on the itinerary, it doesn’t leave the office.”
- Travellers hosted
- 2,400+
- Travellers hosted
- Local guides
- 40
- Local guides
- Provinces covered
- 9
- Provinces covered
How we work
Four rules we don’t bend.
They are not slogans. They decide which hotels we book, which guides we use, and which journeys we turn down.
01
Local money stays local
We book family-run hotels and pay guides directly, not through an agency chain. The person driving you owns the car.
02
Honest about fit
If a place isn’t right for you, we say so — even when it’s the one everyone asks for. A shorter journey done well beats a full one done badly.
03
Slow over full
Fewer stops, longer stays. The itinerary is a plan, not a checklist, and there is always room for the thing you didn’t know about.
04
Leave the island as we found it
No elephant rides, small groups, and no sending people where the wildlife doesn’t want them. We’d rather lose the booking.
The team
The people you’ll actually speak to.
No account managers and no handovers. These are the two who plan the journeys, answer the emails, and pick up the phone while you’re travelling.
Ishara Kanchana
Director of Operations
ishara@ceylontravelconnect.comIn their words
A few of the people this team has planned for.
“We asked for ‘not too much driving’. What we got was three days in Ella we hadn’t thought to ask for, and a driver who knew which side of the train to sit on.”
“They moved the whole first week when our flights changed, without being asked twice. The plan was rewritten before we landed.”
“Our guide knew the names of every bird our son pointed at. By the end of the trip our son knew most of them too.”
For general enquiries, write to info@ceylontravelconnect.com.
Plan with a local
Come and see whether we’re a good fit.
Tell us roughly when you want to travel and what you’re hoping for. There’s no obligation, and we’ll tell you honestly if we’re not the right people for the journey.
We reply within one working day