Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts host the highly anticipated third edition of the Future of Tourism Summit (FOT 2019) on Monday (23),at the Cinnamon Grand Colombo under the patronage of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The lime light of the event was the conversation between famed CNN international correspondent Richard Quest and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

At the beginning of the interview, Quest posed an important question to the premier.

First few minutes of the conversation are as below;

Richard Quest: Among the various things, first of all Thank you PM for being here, it’s very kind of you.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe: Nice to meet you again Richard.

Richard Quest: There’s various issues that we can look at, but I talked about Elephants. So, let’s start with the elephant in the room (loud applause from the crowd) very wise to applaud before you heard the line (Indicating the crowd). When are you going to announce your presidential candidate? (Question to the PM)

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe: Very soon.

Richard Quest: Does that mean you are not going to tell me now?

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe: No, it is a secret.

Richard Quest: we’ll move on.

Highlight:

Richard Quest: Are you sure you won’t tell me who the presidential candidate will be?

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe: No Richard, because I’m a bit frightened because every politician wants a top job and (pointing at the audience) all of them have got frightened and they say all 225 must be thrown out.