Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau is looking at ways to revive inbound tourism in the country post the deadly Easter Sunday bombings that created apprehensions regarding safety in the mind of travellers.
In the middle of this strategy are the plans to appoint the UK based, globally renowned marketing communications agency, PR representatives in key and new markets besides introducing special discounted tourism packages for the main source market, India.
A high level tourism delegation lead by John Amaratunga – Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Christian Religious Affair was in India this week holding discussions with key trade and media representatives in the cities of Mumbai and New Delhi. India is the first country the tourism board has visited post the terrorist attack in order to reinstate that Sri Lanka remains safe to travel.
“We have appointed J. Walter Thompson to help us ideate new set of strategies covering our key source markets. Considering the sentiments that have surfaced post April 21, it demands a different approach and we are at present brainstorming what changes are required. We will be working with the agency over the six months time to aggressively promote our tourism products,” said Kishu Gomes, Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau.
The tourism board has revised its targets for 2019, fearing a decline of 30 per cent in the inbound arrivals compared to the last year. Sri Lanka welcomed 2.3 million foreign tourists in 2018. However, with key source markets including India, China, UK, Italy, Australia, France and Germany relaxing its travel advisories, the tourism board expects that the sector will bounce back gradually.
Bringing cheer to the tourism and hospitality stakeholders of Sri Lanka, a lot of sporting and MICE events are taking place as scheduled in the coming months including an international baseball tournament, surfing competition and logistics conference.
“The international surfing federation did an independent security audit and concluded it is safe to visit Sri Lanka. The international logistics conference taking place in Colombo will see participants from 100 countries. The United Federation of Travel Agents’ Associations (UFTAA) is also organising its annual general meeting (AGM) in Colombo in two months time. This is a reflection that things have normalized and international community is supporting Sri Lanka,” added Gomes.
The tourism minister while addressing a news conference in New Delhi said that Sri Lanka may consider introducing visa-on-arrival facility for key source markets including India and China in the near future.
On the other hand SriLankan Airlines, The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) and Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) have joined hands together to come-up with attractive discounted tour packages for the Indian market. These B2B packages available with SriLankan Holidays – the leisure arm of SriLankan Airlines are 30-60 per cent cheaper than the normally publicised packages.
“Soon after the terrorist attack there was a decline of about 70 per cent in the number of tourist arrivals in the month of May. However, in June we are seeing an increase in demand and are confident about prospects in the future with travel advisories being taken back,” said Nalin Jayasundera, Managing Director, Aitken Spence Travels.