In 2017, Lakpura Travels (Pvt) Ltd received the Viator Award of Excellence, recognising the company as one of Viator's top-performing supply partners globally that year. Viator — a TripAdvisor company and one of the world's most widely used platforms for tours, activities, and day trips — issues this award to operators who consistently deliver exceptional service, high booking volumes, and strong traveller reviews. For Lakpura, it marked a meaningful external validation of the standards we hold across every itinerary we design for Sri Lanka.
What is the Viator Award of Excellence?
Viator's Award of Excellence is given to a select group of operators from its global network of thousands of tour and activity providers. Selection is based on a combination of booking performance, traveller review scores, and reliability metrics tracked across the calendar year. Receiving the award in 2017 placed Lakpura among a small tier of operators that Viator publicly recognised as outstanding partners — not just within South Asia, but on a worldwide scale.
The award reflects what travellers themselves reported: consistent pick-up times, knowledgeable guides, well-maintained vehicles, and itineraries that matched — or exceeded — what was advertised online.
What does this recognition mean for travellers booking with Lakpura?
Third-party recognition from a platform like Viator carries weight precisely because it is based on aggregated traveller feedback rather than self-reported claims. When you book a tour through an operator that has earned this distinction, you have an independent data point confirming that other travellers — across a wide range of nationalities and expectations — rated their experience highly.
For Sri Lanka visitors weighing their options, that track record translates into practical confidence: your driver will show up on time, your guide will speak the language of the country you want to explore, and if something changes on the ground, Lakpura's local team is reachable and responsive.
What kinds of tours earned Lakpura this recognition?
Lakpura's Viator listings in 2017 spanned the breadth of Sri Lanka's travel offer — cultural heritage routes, wildlife safaris, coastal excursions, and city tours. Some of the most consistently well-reviewed experiences included:
- Cultural triangle circuits — combining ancient cities such as Polonnaruwa with rock fortress visits and temple tours
- Wildlife safaris — ranging from elephant-watching at Udawalawe National Park to leopard-spotting drives in the north
- City tours — including tailored Colombo city tours and half-day excursions from the airport hotel strip in Negombo
- Adventure and nature experiences — such as hot-air ballooning over the cultural plains and river safaris along the western coast
- Coastal and marine activities — covering turtle hatchery visits, boat trips, and deep-sea fishing charters
The common thread across these tours was local expertise. Lakpura's guides and drivers are based in Sri Lanka year-round, which means they understand seasonal road conditions, temple visiting etiquette, and the kind of context that turns a sightseeing tick-box into a genuine encounter with the country.
How does Lakpura maintain quality across tours?
Earning an award in a given year is one thing; maintaining the standard that produced it is another. Lakpura operates as a fully licensed destination management company (DMC) registered in Sri Lanka, which means all logistics — ground transport, accommodation blocks, guide assignments, and local entry arrangements — are handled in-house rather than subcontracted through aggregators. That direct control over the supply chain is what keeps the experience consistent whether a traveller books a two-hour city tour or a 14-night island circuit.
Driver-guides undergo periodic briefings on site updates, new entry procedures, and responsible tourism practices — particularly relevant at ecologically sensitive destinations like the Sinharaja Forest Reserve or high-footfall heritage sites. Traveller feedback collected after each tour is reviewed internally and used to adjust briefings, routing, and timing across the portfolio.
Why book Sri Lanka tours through a recognised local DMC?
Sri Lanka's geography rewards thoughtful planning. The island is compact — roughly 430 kilometres from north to south — but the road network, weather patterns, and site access rules mean that generic itineraries often leave travellers sitting in traffic or arriving at a site during its quietest, least atmospheric hour. A local DMC with a proven track record can route around predictable bottlenecks, time wildlife drives for dawn, and secure permits for restricted-access areas well ahead of departure.
The Viator award gave travellers an independently verified signal that Lakpura was doing exactly that — and doing it at a scale that satisfied a large enough volume of international visitors to rank among the platform's top performers for the full year.
Planning a trip to Sri Lanka with Lakpura
Whether you are a first-time visitor trying to navigate the gap between Colombo and the hill country, or a returning traveller wanting to explore less-visited corners of the island, Lakpura's team can put together a private, semi-private, or group itinerary that fits your pace and interests. Day-trip options — ideal for cruise passengers or travellers with a single free day — sit alongside multi-week private journeys that connect the coast, the highlands, and the ancient cities in a logical, unhurried sequence.
Experiences like the Esala Perahera Festival in Kandy, the cloud forests above Ella, or a dawn visit to a working tea estate are the kind of moments that linger after a trip ends. Getting the logistics right is what allows those moments to happen without friction — and that, ultimately, is what the 2017 Viator Award of Excellence was recognising.