Thushan Shanmugarajah, Director Sales and Marketing, findmyfare.com with Dinesh Kanagaratnam, CEO Habitat for Humanity, Sri Lanka

Thursday 20th August 2015 Colombo: Sri Lanka’s largest online travel company, findmyfare.com recently launched its Insta Booking Challenge which will now give you the opportunity to provide the comfort and security of a home to those in need across Sri Lanka. To participate in the challenge, you will have to create a video or selfie that captures the excitement of planning a dream holiday with your friends. The lucky winners of the competition will also stand the chance of winning a free trip to any destination in the world, as well as a hotel stay worth Rs. 250,000 sponsored by American Express and four free return air tickets to Sigiriya which will be provided by Cinnamon Air. 

For every 10 likes that your content gains, findmyfare.com will donate Rs. 1 to Habitat for Humanity Sri Lanka – an organization dedicated to providing housing for Sri Lankans across the island who are in need of a proper home. Created in 1995, Habitat for Humanity Sri Lanka is a registered non-governmental organization that completed the building of 10,000 houses in 2008.

To participate in the competition, all you have to do is complete three easy steps. Firstly, you have to develop a creative video that captures the excitement of planning a holiday with your friends. The video has to include the three friends you want to travel with and it has to be fun, innovative and unique enough that it will stand out and gain as many likes as possible. You can also participate in the competition by taking a memorable selfie that includes three of your friends. 

After your video or selfie are ready, simply make a free online booking on the findmyfare.com website to the destination of your choice. Make sure that you include a maximum of three friends in your booking and get your Trip ID. Finally, upload your video or selfie onto the ‘findmyfare.com Insta Booking Challenge’ event Facebook page, with the hashtags #findmyfare #Trip ID, and tag your three friends. Every 10 likes that your content generates, will help build a home for a person in need. You can also support this cause by liking and sharing the videos that are posted on the Facebook page. 

The criteria for winning the competition is simple – the video and selfie with the highest amount of likes will win. The prize for the most liked video will be a dream trip for four people, to any destination in the world, and the prize for the selfie with the most likes will be an all-expense paid getaway to a luxurious local hotel and four free return air tickets to Sigiriya. 

 To be eligible for the competition, you have to hashtag your unique Trip ID number when making your post, and the deadline for posting all content is 30 September 2015. Winners will be able to make use of their free trips from 15 October 2015 – 31 December 2015 and all airline tickets and accommodation bookings will be subject to availability. You can create multiple videos and selfies, however content and Trip IDs can’t be edited once they have been posted. 

Commenting on the partnership, Dinesh Kanagaratnam, CEO Habitat for Humanity, Sri Lanka stated, “While a decent home is a basic human right, many families in Sri Lanka live in a single room with tin sheets for walls, no electricity, leaking roofs, little to no sanitation and no privacy, which negatively impacts education, relationships and health. Habitat for Humanity Sri Lanka has worked across the island to help people in need gain access to safe and affordable shelter and we are excited to have the support of findmyfare.com. All funds donated by findmyfare.com as part of the Insta Booking Challenge will be used to build a nation where everyone has a place to call home.” 

Commenting on the challenge, Thushan Shanmugarajah, Director Sales and Marketing, findmyfare.com stated, “We developed this challenge because we wanted to create excitement around the process of planning and booking a holiday. When you plan out your dream vacation with your friends, you come together in a spirit of camaraderie and you have a great deal of fun together – a video and selfie can effectively capture this excitement and help you share it with others. Not only does this challenge help highlight the joy of planning a trip, it also gives you the chance to help members of our community who are desperately in need of a home. Whether you’re participating in the challenge, or simply sharing a video, each and every like received will contribute towards the building of homes for families who don’t have access to adequate shelter. In the recent past, many Sri Lankans have been affected by heavy rainfall, floods and landslides that rendered them homeless. Additionally, many families who live in poverty cannot afford a safe and comfortable home of their own. Now you can participate in this challenge, and help these people to rebuild their homes, and ultimately their lives.”   

Since its launch in 2012, findmyfare.com has become Sri Lanka’s ultimate one-stop travel shop, providing the best travel deals available in the market-place. The findmyfare.com website allows customers to search, compare and book affordable flights and hotels around the world. The company was also the very first in Sri Lanka to provide an online reservations system that enabled customers to confirm bookings without submitting a credit card payment. All the features of the findmyfare.com website are also designed to make the process of researching, choosing and paying for a holiday as simple, easy and convenient as possible. Please note that terms and conditions for the above initiative apply.