Caring for Place and People: How Browns Hotels & Resorts Spent World Tourism Day 2026

For World Tourism Day this year, our staff and guests at Dickwella Resort & Spa cleaned the shoreline next to the hotel. In Ella, the Newburgh team ran a cleaning programme at the Ravana Falls premises. At The Calm, we invited Home Science students from Valachchenai Hindu College for a behind-the-scenes look at how a resort functions, from the kitchen to the front desk.

UN Tourism’s theme for 2026 was “Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence to Redesign Tourism“, and two of our properties, The Eden Beruwala and The Paradise Dambulla, held AI awareness sessions. Elsewhere, our teams ran clean-ups, planted trees, hosted students, and shared Sri Lankan culture with guests, adding to our wider community and environmental work.

Below, we round up how World Tourism Day in Sri Lanka turned out at each of our properties.

World Tourism Day at a Glance

Newburgh Ella: Sri Lanka’s First Certified Paperless Hotel

Newburgh Ella, The Tea Factory Resort, was recognised by the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC), Sri Lanka, as the first hotel in Sri Lanka to achieve a certified paperless operation. The certificate was presented to Eksath Wijeratne, CEO of Browns Hotels & Resorts by Samantha Kumarasena, Director General and CEO of the NCPC.

The 41-room resort occupies a tea factory dating back to 1903, an unusual home for a certified paperless hotel. This is because the building once relied on handwritten ledgers, registers, and paper records to document the daily movement of tea. Today, digital systems run both guest services and hotel operations.

The paperless operation reaches every department:

• Guests register digitally, view dining menus electronically, and receive bills and folios without printed documents.
• Finance and administration handle approvals, records, and documentation through digital systems.
• Engineering monitors electricity consumption digitally, so usage can be recorded and reviewed.
• The kitchen records temperature checks digitally, keeping an accessible record for food safety monitoring and audits.
• Housekeeping uses digital devices to manage and record daily activities.
• Stores keep stock movements and inventory records electronically rather than in physical registers.

After comparing the paper and stationery use across front office, finance, food and beverage, and administration with conventional paper-based hotel operations, we estimated the change to avoid around 1.3 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent a year.

“We have looked at the way a hotel works, from the guest journey to the back office, and challenged ourselves to remove unnecessary paper wherever technology allows us to do so,” said Eksath Wijeratne. 

For us, the recognition reinforces Newburgh Ella’s place as an example of how a heritage property can take on technology and more resource-conscious ways of operating while keeping the character and stories that give it its identity.

Clean-Ups and Tree Planting Across Four Properties

Four of our properties ran clean-up or tree-planting programmes.

Dickwella Resort & Spa. Our staff and guests took part in a beach clean-up along the shoreline next to the hotel. The resort stands on a peninsula near Hiriketiya Bay, and the wilder side of its beach is a sea turtle nesting site.

Newburgh Ella. Our team came together to care for Ella with a cleaning programme at the Ravana Falls premises, one of the area’s best-known waterfalls. We also introduced a Little Free Library, a small space where people can share books and the joy of reading.

Hotel Sigiriya. Our team ran a cleaning programme around the hotel premises, then brought everyone together in the evening for the celebration described below.

Ayugiri Ayurveda Wellness Resort. We joined hands with the Clean Sri Lanka Team for a tree-planting initiative at the Ayugiri premises and Sigiriya Uyana: a small step towards greener spaces, healthier surroundings, and a more sustainable future for the places we call home.

Students and Neighbours on World Tourism Day in Sri Lanka

At five of our properties, the day centred on learning and on the people around us.

• The Calm Resort & Spa. We invited Home Science students from Valachchenai Hindu College for a behind-the-scenes look at how a resort functions, from the kitchen to the front desk, with a few activities along the way.
• Club Hotel Dolphin. We ran a hotel awareness programme for NVQ students from Bolawatta, giving them a glimpse of the people, skills, and opportunities behind the tourism industry.
• The Paradise Dambulla. We held an awareness session on how digital technology and AI are shaping tourism and hospitality. Our management team and associates took part alongside Advanced Level students from D.S. Senanayake College, Dambulla, and the session looked at how technology and human hospitality can work together.
• The Eden Beruwala. We held an AI awareness programme at the hotel with the Browns Hotels & Resorts Learning Academy, exploring this year’s theme.
• Thaala Bentota. Our team, joined by guests, shared gifts and refreshments with students of a neighbouring Dhamma school, then handed out refreshments to passengers at Bentota Railway Station.

Local Culture and Long Service

Guests saw the cultural side of World Tourism Day in Sri Lanka at two properties.

At Hotel Sigiriya, the evening was a celebration of what makes Sri Lanka special, with a cultural showcase and a traditional craft exhibition at the hotel.

At Club Hotel Dolphin, we brought Sri Lankan culture closer to guests with traditional dancing and a handicraft exhibition.

Whereas at The Calm Resort & Spa, we rewarded staff members who have been with the hotel for more than five years.

Planning a Stay with Browns Hotels & Resorts

The beaches and waterfalls our teams looked after are the same places guests travel to see, and our hotels and resorts sit close to them, from the coast to the Cultural Triangle and the Ella hills.

Explore our hotels and resorts and current offers, or contact us for help planning your stay. Wherever you stay, it will be with a team that spent World Tourism Day, and many more days, caring for the place you came to see.