Sri Lanka will host the inaugural World Congress on Snakes (WCS 2026) in Kandy from 1 to 4 October at the Grand Kandyan Hotel, drawing more than 300 international delegates alongside over 100 Sri Lankan participants — a turnout the organisers say has surpassed original expectations.
CDC Events & Travels (Pvt) Ltd has been appointed official Professional Conference Organiser and is handling the operational framework, Hiru News reported. Its remit runs to venue and destination management, airport transfers, delegate transport, hotel bookings and local tour itineraries, plus pre- and post-conference excursions.
What the congress is for
The scientific programme is built around three aims: sharing new research, advancing clinical protocols for snakebite management, and driving international conservation strategies. It is led by Dr. Anslem de Silva, Dr. Julie Ray and Dr. Daniel Natusch, and is designed to bring wildlife biologists, medical professionals and conservationists into the same room.
The clinical half of that agenda is the part with the most direct bearing on Sri Lanka, where snakebite is a long-standing rural public health problem and antivenom supply and treatment protocol have been recurring policy issues.
What the photograph adds
The press conference image released with the announcement carries detail the text does not. The backdrop gives the congress its full title and theme — “World Congress on Snakes 2026: Snakes, Science, Species Survival & Sri Lanka” — and independently confirms the 01–04 October 2026 dates. The nameplates on the table show Dr. Anslem de Silva seated as Congress Chairperson, flanked by the General Manager of the Grand Kandyan Hotel and the Mayor of Kandy, indicating municipal backing that the filing never mentions.
The tourism framing
Hiru carries the item on its business desk, and the announcement is explicitly pitched at Sri Lanka’s business-events and MICE tourism sector — CDC Events presents the congress as evidence that professional event management delivers value across the wider tourism chain, and Kandy as a workable venue for large international gatherings.
That framing is the company’s own. It is worth noting this is a PCO’s announcement of its own appointment, issued nine days before the event, rather than independent reporting on the congress.
Still unanswered. The filing gives no delegate fee, no estimate of the foreign exchange the congress is expected to earn, and no breakdown of which countries delegates are travelling from. It provides no Sri Lankan snakebite incidence or mortality figures, names no government ministry or university as a partner, and does not say what the post-congress field excursions cover. No other verified newsroom had carried this announcement at the time of writing; earlier coverage of the congress elsewhere dates from March and falls outside our sourcing window.
