Is Sri Lanka telling the world it is open for tourism?
Although the resplendent island’s tourism industry was among the first to recover, it seems it’s the last to market.
An interesting storyline titled “Why Sri Lanka needs to tell the world it’s open for business” appeared during mid-March, in the Skift, a leading news source for travel executives. The opening paragraph of this article, written by Peden Doma Bhutia begins, “Having battled political instability and economic crisis, a resilient tourism industry in Sri Lanka now waits for the government to do its bit to communicate to the world that the country is open to tourists. But not exactly in the critical manner that was deployed by Sri Lankan Tourism Minister Harin Fernando at the recent ITB Berlin conference, where he called Maldives “boring,” without much to offer to tourists, compared to Sri Lanka.”
Yes, the Tourism Minister’s amateurish comment didn’t go well. One does not disparage the competition when pushing one’s own advantages. Reputed and ethical businesses know that is disrespectful. Anyways, all that is now history and hopefully the youthful minister’s faux pas, which one could put down to immaturity rather than arrogance, is forgiven – especially by our Maldivian friends.
The narrative provides some attention grabbing data, such as Sri Lanka’s last real tourism promotion campaign had been carried out 16 years ago. Incredibly, the country’s last global promotion campaign was in 2007. Yes, it was at a time there was a civil war which ended in 2010 and discounting 2020 to 2022 as the pandemic years, a total 13 years were wasted with mere talk, little action and creating new taglines and relegating old slogans to the attic, whilst meandering along. The article points out that a comprehensive consumer campaign, which was finalized in 2021, was then shelved. Arguably, COVID -19 put paid to that campaign seeing the light of day.
The writer goes on to say “The country plans to attract 1.55 million visitors in 2023, a target which many feel isn’t a particularly high number given the capacity and potential of the destination”.
A Sri Lankan travel agent representing a leading UK travel firm is quoted as saying “In Sri Lanka, the tourism sector is predominately driven by private investments with the government authority mostly focused on regulations and marketing in select foreign markets.
The government recently announced that Sri Lanka would launch tourism promotional campaigns in nine key markets. The campaigns that are expected to start from April would include India, Russia, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Middle East, Scandinavia and China.
The Skift article quotes a leading upscale hotel operator, who lamented, “While Russia and India have been key markets in the last couple of months, the low spend has been a talking point in the industry”, going on to add later, ““A debilitated private sector cannot adequately compensate for a non-performing state marketing agency,”
The largest tourism source market to Sri Lanka in 2023 year-to-date is from Russia, with India in second slot. Russia is now Dubai’s second largest source market, beaten only by India. The similarity in the two countries ends there. Dubai is by no means a cheap destination because it has succeeded in selling itself as a desirable destination for wealthier visitors from Asia, Europe and the rest of the world - unlike Sri Lanka, where over 95 % of its tourists visit the island for a low-cost stay.
Another reason is that tourists from the same country do not spend the same amount of money in each country. Considering the steep depreciation of the SL.Rupee against the U.S. dollar, the amount of tourism receipts can therefore vary greatly when compared to the past, and when compared with other stable currencies.
Sri Lanka will need to make a professional effort to let the world know what it can offer as a tourist destination and give’s its image a makeover – marketing it as a tourist destination that can also cater for wealthier visitors, which will then allow for substantially more revenue.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
|
|
|
|
