Sri Lanka tourism marketing - the challenge ahead

World’s biggest industry and employer
According to the World Travel & Tourism council (2003) (WTTC), travel and tourism is the biggest industry in the world on virtually any economic measures, including gross profit, value added, capital investment, employment, and tax contributions.
The Travel and Tourism industry is one of the world’s largest employers, with nearly 195 million jobs or 7.5 per cent of all employees. By 2012 this is forecasted to grow to 247 million jobs.

Hawkins and Ritchie (1991), quoting from data published by the American Express Company, suggest that travel and tourism industry is the number one ranked employer in Australia, the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, France, (the former) West Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Opportunity lost
Unfortunately the absence of consistency in strategy and meaningful strategic marketing planning combined with the negative impact of over two decades of ethnic conflict have robbed Sri Lanka of the opportunity to exploit the fuller potential within this industry. Therefore, the effort made by the Tourist Board and the tourism industry in September 2006 to jointly conduct an extensive review towards developing Sri Lanka Tourism’s first ever comprehensive strategic marketing plan was a significant achievement.

Noteworthy too is the action being taken by the Tourism Authority and the tourism industry (despite the unfortunate ground situation) to move on to a professional footing, to implement the developed strategic marketing plan. Unlike in the case of effortsmade in 2000 where by 2006 even a copy of the medium term plan was difficult to be located at the Tourist Board, the continuity of this 2006 effort despite a change in leadership at the Board speaks volumes for the professionalism of the new leadership and the determination of the industry.

A small step
Having been invited to facilitate the 2006 September strategic marketing planning sessions I carried out extensive desk research on the relevant areas. A key factor that emerged through this review was the need for a repositioning of the destination Sri Lanka. Following the extensive review by all industry stakeholders I was encouraged by their adopting the positioning strategy I recommended. The advertising brief guiding the communication process prepared by us in Perth Australia and made available to the Board, we are made to understand, received the commendation of the bidding advertising agencies. This is but a very important but yet a small step in the overall process.

Integrated communication
It is important to remember that advertising is not developed or delivered in a vacuum – it plays an important although a limited role within the process of marketing. Perhaps one of the most important advances in marketing in recent decades has been the rise of integrated marketing communication– the recognition that advertising can no longer be crafted and executed in isolation from the other promotional mix elements. As markets, media and marketing itself have grown more complex and fragmented; advertisers and consumers find themselves in an ever more confusing marketing environment.

The answer to this is to convey a consistent, unified message and identity through all an organization’s marketing and communications activities – integrated marketing communications. This means that the advertiser (and therefore the brand) speaks with a single voice in the most consistent, cost effective way. This sounds logical but the biggest problem stems from organizational structures.

Given the complexity of the organization structure within the new Tourism Act and decision making possibilities within various independent units the need for strict overarching organizational processes to ensure this consistency in speaking with one voice is of vital importance.

Be it the TV commercial, the Web page, a simple leaflet, a MICE activity, a WTO stall, the posters at entry and exit points, promotion of visitor locations within the country, whatever the promotional mix element it may be it is essential that they all speak with a single voice consistent with the agree destination positioning strategy as embodied in its approved positioning statement.

I see this as one of the bigger challenges into the future. If Sri Lanka Tourism does not face up to it as it should, Sri Lanka Tourism could end up again giving different signals, moving away from its core positioning that has been selected to market the destination – again wasting funds to confuse the customer rather than building that desired winning perception in the mind of the prospective tourist.

Compelling Rationale
A positioning strategy for a brand (a destination or product) drives to build the most compelling perception among the targeted consumers as to why they should prefer our brand over that offered by the competitor. Positioning is the process in which the organization communicates with consumers to establish a distinctive place for its brand in their minds. As Al Ries points out, the marketing battle is won or lost in the mind of the consumer.

Obviously therefore it is essential that all marketing mix elements speak with one voice, one key distinguishing competitive advantage that will help develop the desired image/perception. As Nijel Morgan and Annette Prichard (2000) say “The three mistakes of positioning strategies are under positioning, over positioning and confused positioning. In this communications fog, the only hope for a product to make any impression through its advertising (and promotion) is to be selective, to focus on an appropriate segment and to adopt a positioning strategy”.

Bob Garfield, editor of Advertising Age and long time advertising critic writing on destination advertising says: “When you look at the ads…. You can see transcripts of the arguments at the tourist boards… the membership of which all want their own interests served …..you can see the destruction of the advertising message as a result of the politics.”

As Sri Lanka Tourism ventures out for the very first time to move on to a truly professional approach to strategic marketing based on an agreed poisoning strategy the following thoughts of N. Morgan and A Pritchard are indeed very relevant to note
“In addition to compromising the creative process of marketing and advertising destinations, the political masters of public sector tourism organizations frequently demand short-term results – pressure that is inconsistent with the long-term investment required by brand -building.

Whilst ultimately it is the politicians who are the destination marketers’ paymasters, a destination brand’s life span is more of a long-term proposition than the career of most politicians. Bureaucratic red tape can also often confound effective advertising – the marketers of Valencia, Spain’s third city, for instance, are obliged to issue new advertising contracts every year – a practice which can do little to ensure consistency of message. Frequently, political considerations within local state can even dictate the range of photographs that are included in a campaign. Many a creative execution has had to be amended so that brochures, commercials or posters can include photographs to illustrate all key areas, towns, or resorts within a region or country. Whilst this has its political advantage in that it appeases local pressure groups and local residents – politicians are vulnerable to bad press and unrest in the trade – it will seriously compromise the effectiveness of the advertising.”

It is thus the duty of all tourism industry stakeholders to ensure that Sri Lanka tourism advertising and promotion does not go back to the past where the strategy changed with every change of not only the government but even the leadership of the Tourist Board within the same government.