Having fought political instability and recession, a durable tourism market in Sri Lanka now awaits the government to do its bit to communicate to the world that the nation is open to travelers.
However not precisely in the crucial manner that was released by Sri Lankan Tourism Minister Harin Fernando at the recent ITB Berlin conference, where he called Maldives “uninteresting,” without much to provide to travelers, compared to Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka’s last genuine tourist promo campaign was 16 years back.
Through March 13, Sri Lanka invited 264,022 visitors this year, with 53,838 visitors getting here in the first 13 days of March.
The nation plans to attract 1.55 million visitors in 2023, a target which lots of feel isn’t a particularly high number given the capacity and capacity of the location.
Rocked by a series of bomb blasts in 2019, Sri Lanka invited a little less than 2 million travelers that year, 18 percent lower than its 2018 arrivals of 2.3 million travelers.
Battling a Recession
In 2015 from April onwards, the country experienced a spate of anti-government demonstrations versus aggravating shortages of food, fuel and medicines and declaration of a state of emergency, in what is stated to be the worst economic crisis in the country.
While organization has actually returned in 2023, Malik Fernando handling director of Sri Lanka-based luxury hotel collection Resplendent Ceylon, rued that the nation’s failure to market itself has actually ensured that the number of travelers and the spend are still way lower than normal.
Sri Lanka’s normal core market over the winter is Europe with longer stays and higher invest.
However, as European tourists are more sensitive to the unfavorable press that the destination got last year, Fernando said the state promotion agency should’ve done more to interact the go back to normalcy.
“Sri Lanka’s last global promotion project was in 2007,” Fernando stated, while including that a thorough customer project, which was meticulously finalized during 2021, was however shelved.
“Ever since, the focus has actually reverted to olden trade shows without awareness of the requirement for customer engagement,” he included.
Travelers Unaware of Sri Lanka’s Tourist Recovery
While the tourism industry in Sri Lanka was the first to be impacted by the pandemic and last year’s recession, Gayangi Wirasinha, managing director of Abercrombie & Kent Sri Lanka, stated the industry was likewise the very first to recuperate.
A healing message that Fernando thinks the country hasn’t been able to communicate as visitors are unaware that normalcy returned as far back as July 2022.
“In Sri Lanka, the tourism sector is predominately driven by private investments with the government authority primarily focused on guidelines and marketing in select foreign markets,” Wirasinha stated.
Calling rebuilding a communication issue even for the economic sector, Fernando stated private stakeholders focus more on trade outreach whereas customer marketing is critical to allay worries after the unfavorable media in the 2nd quarter of 2022.
“A debilitated private sector can not properly compensate for a non-performing state marketing firm,” he stated.
Nevertheless, he pointed out that the Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance, founded in 2019 by a group of economic sector leaders, has begun a marketing campaign with limited budget plan in European markets.
“The pickup we are beginning to see could have started long previously had we interacted,” stated Fernando.
The Elusive Tourism Marketing Campaign
Making use of the marketing levy collected from personal stakeholders, the travel industry in Sri Lanka had actually expected a digital and marketing project to start months ago.
Provided the significance of tourist to the economy and livelihoods of 15 percent of the population, Fernando said in future, this “vital function” ought to be contracted out to an expert outfit.
Tourist has actually been Sri Lanka’s third-largest foreign exchange-earner in 2019 bringing in an approximated $3.6 billion.
The Sri Lanka government had been planning to launch a $1.3 million-worth global tourist project to revive travellers to the country, according to reports in 2015.
Nevertheless, the project is yet to see the light of day.
Wirasinha too acknowledged that the campaign that has been under discussion for the past 2-3 years, is long overdue, especially considering that the financing for such programs comes from the tourist development levy charged to all private stakeholders.
“Careful preparation and execution are needed to share engaging stories and timely news for travel professionals that will influence prospects,” she said.
Now, in a recent development, the government stated that Sri Lanka would introduce tourist advertising campaigns in 9 key markets.
The projects that are anticipated to begin with April, would include India, Russia, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Middle East, Scandanavia and China.
Markets in Focus
While Russia and India have been crucial markets in the last couple of months, the low invest has actually been a talking point in the market, said Fernando.
Speaking about particular markets where Sri Lanka has an enduring appeal and can command a longer length of stay and gratifying invest, Fernando called UK, Europe, U.S, Gulf and Australia.
For Wirasinha, the low-hanging fruit for Sri Lanka would be tourists originating from neighboring Maldives, which is a 60-minute plane ride away.
She included, “The U.S., UK and Europe are all great source markets for family travel, specifically now with the strength of the U.S. dollar.”
Sri Lanka was also one of the 20 nations consisted of in the first list of China’s outbound tourism pilot program for group trips, announced in January.
And even as Sri Lanka brings in a considerable variety of mid-to-budget-Chinese visitors, Wirasinha said lack of ultra-luxury products has kept the Chinese luxury market away from the location.
“We see this changing in the next five to seven years as the China Port city project starts operating,” she said.
Modification indeed is what the travel market in Sri Lanka is eagerly anticipating.
And while the country seeks to revive its days of tourist splendor, Fernando observed, “A state agency is woefully geared to conduct modern-day tourist marketing, taking on locations that have actually sophisticated strategies outsourced to experts.”