Welcome to Jetwing Eco Holidays, the leading wildlife tour operator in Sri Lanka. Our web site is the largest online wildlife resource center in Sri Lanka. Jetwing Eco Holidays was created to cater to specialist travelers and small specialist tour operators who may think that a big travel company has no time for them. You can read more about Jetwing Eco Holidays in the About Us section of the website.

Highlights

Why visit Sri Lanka?

* Big Game - Best for Big Game outside Africa

* Blue Whale - Best in World, Sperm Whale - Top 10

* Leopard and Sloth Bear - Best in World

* Elephant - The Gathering: Biggest seasonally recurring congregation in the world (Ranked sixth amongst the world's greatest wildlife spectacles by Lonely Planet.)

* Bird Waves - Sinharaja Bird Wave: Largest, best viewing and longest studied  

Bill Oddie, Lyndal Davies, Michaela Strachan, etc., have chosen Jetwing Eco Holidays to visit 'Sri Lanka: The Ultimate Island Safari'. Jetwing Eco Holidays have broken almost every single big wildlife story from Sri Lanka and are the preferred choice for celebrities, TV crews, professional and amateur photographers and birders as well as casual wildlife enthusiasts. 

Our Website

This website has two main aspects to it. Firstly, the business side of Jetwing Eco Holidays. We are the leading wildlife travel company in Sri Lanka. We are the preferred ground agent for many discerning travelers, whether they are simply on holiday, or are birders in search of endemics, or film crews in search of leopards. With our unrivalled expertise, we have also emerged as one of the two leading natural history publishers in Sri Lanka. With a strong combination of office and field skills, we are ready to tailor a memorable holiday for you.

Secondly, our web site is an information hub. It is the most extensive on-line information resource center on Sri Lankan wildlife and the website has over a thousand pages of information. Past copies of the Sri Lanka Wildlife e-Newsletter is one of the most detailed information resources on the web. The image directories are also frequently used by school children and wildlife enthusiasts. Surf our web site and enjoy learning about Sri Lanka.

If you are looking for a tailored holiday, we will be pleased to assist you. We have one of the most experienced teams of operations and field staff. We are there to make sure your holiday works the way you want it.


Our Expertise and Clients

The expertise of Jetwing Eco Holidays is unrivalled. What is more, it shares its knowledge through its own publications as well as from leading publishers such New Holland and Bradt.

We handle more specialist clients each year than any other tour operator in Sri Lanka. The Who's Who of the Birding and Wildlife world have chosen to travel with us. A few examples include the following.

TV Wildlife Presenters Bill Oddie, Lyndal Davies and Michaela Strachan. Tim and Carol Inskipp (Ornithologists), David and Hilary Cromack (Editors of Birdwatching and Birds Illustrated), Marianne Taylor (author and deputy editor Birdwatch), Andy Swash (Publisher of WildGuides), Dan and Rosemary Powell (authors and illustrators of dragonfly and butterfly guides) TV crews from BBC Fast Track, Discovery, NatGeo, Natural History New Zealand, Martin Clunes (TV celebrity), etc. 

Publications (Wildlife Books on Sri Lanka)

Jetwing Eco Holidays believes in the concept of continuously developing quality literature to help promote Sri Lanka as a top eco tourism destination in the world.

The staff of Jetwing have also written and photographed for some internationally published books such as A Birdwatchers Guide to Sri Lanka (Oriental Bird Club, UK), A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka, Magic of Sri Lanka and Portrait of Sri Lanka (New Holland, London) and Sri Lankan Wildlife (Bradt Travel Guides, UK).

To view the complete list of publications, please visit the Publications section of the web site.


     

                  

   



Wildlife Videos and Imagery

This website is a hub for fantastic images of Sri Lankan Wildlife, almost all of which have been taken by our staff. Apart from still imagery, the office staff and naturalist guides go out regularly into the field to generate video content on wildlife. Youtube links to these can be found on the website.

Responsible Travel

Jetwing believes in fair trade. Jetwing Eco Holidays is emphatic that it will not 'squeeze' local suppliers of goods and services for bargain prices. The prices of the tours of the company reflect being able to pay fair prices to everyone in its supply chain. It accepts that clients (trade and non-trade) who cannot or do not wish to do so, do not fit its client profile. Jetwing Eco Holidays have a policy of paying all suppliers promptly without delaying payments to maximise interest income or ease company cash flows. It recognises that for small local suppliers prompt payments are critical. 

We pay our guides fair wages. Our top naturalist guides earn some of the best guide fees in the local industry. Jetwing Eco Holidays does not accept commissions from shops and other vendors. Our guides are strongly discouraged from accepting commissions. On a wildlife tour, our guides are unlikely to take you to a shop unless you request it.

A significant amount of time and the company's profits are allocated to being an advocate of conservation so that the very resources the company depends are conserved for future generations.

We encourage clients to purchase carbon offsets for their long distance travel. More information on Jetwing and the environment and community can be found on our website.


Sri Lanka

As our main focus is Sri Lanka, let us also give you a brief introduction to Sri Lanka.
 
Sri Lanka is an island which defies convention. According to classic island bio-geographic theory, small islands don't have large mammals. Unfortunately for theory Sri Lanka is an exception. The Blue Whale, the largest mammal to have inhabited our planet is found off Sri Lanka.  South of Sri Lanka is the best place in the world for seeing both Blue Whales and Sperm whales in one whale watching trip. The largest terrestrial mammal in Asia, the Asian Elephant, is found on the island. What is more, Sri Lanka is beyond doubt the best place in Asia to see the Asian Elephant. Visit Uda Walawe National Park, to the south of the central mountain mass, and you are guaranteed to see elephants. During September and October an annual concentration of elephants, called 'The Gathering', takes place on the receding shores of the Minneriya Lake in Minneriya National Park. 'The Gathering' is surely one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on the planet.

Then there is the Big Spotted One. The Leopard is elusive all over the world and almost impossible to see in most of Asia. In Sri Lanka, the Leopard is the Top Cat and reigns supreme. Unchallenged by Lions or Tigers, it can be seen at times having a siesta on the road under the shade of a tree. Recent research suggests that Yala may have one of the highest densities of Leopards in the world. For wildlife enthusiasts, seeing a Leopard is one of the highlights of a visit to the island.

What about birds? Islands are marvelous vestibules for evolutionary dynamics to work, resulting in speciation. Here, the theorists have got it right. The island has thirty-three endemic species of birds. 


Security

The much publicised war with the LTTE is over and normalcy has returned to most of the island. However, security can remains tight in areas such as Colombo, the commercial capital.  With the end of the war, arrivals have risen significantly and there is a shortage of rooms during the winter season.