Jeff Hoffman led a public leadership forum on the future of tourism, entrepreneurship, and digital destination growth in Sri Lanka. The forum brought together government, industry, and global innovators to explore how Sri Lanka can win on the world stage through travel innovation and digital infrastructure.
In addition to Hoffman, Jeevan Gnanam, and the Staynex leadership team presented to startup founders, ecosystem builders, tourism operators, digital innovators, media and public stakeholders.
While in Sri Lanka, Hoffman also met with and commended the team at Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA), which led our entrepreneurs to 4th place on the GEW Leaderboard in 2025 (following 7th place in 2024). This team helped organize 1,671 registered activities with 250 partners and 30,000 participants from all 25 Districts of Sri Lanka - covering the entire island.
After being inspired by Jeff’s insightful ideas at the public leadership forum, the team was overjoyed when Jeff took lots of time off to mingle with and speak to each member. They were excited with the opportunity to share their experience during GEW and to share their personal career ambitions as well.
It is not very often that we get a “global giant” entrepreneur such as Jeff coming by Sri Lanka to speak with us, and it was an amazing honor and privilege for the team and myself to have had him visit. We hope that Jeff will return for a longer visit so that we could share more of our society, culture and environment, which has to be enjoyed slowly.
Thank you Jeff for honoring us with your visit. We hope that “you will come back for more” soon!