Sri Lanka may be promoted as ‘Destination of the Year’ by Lufthansa City Centre
The Sri Lanka Tourist Board is in discussions with travel agency franchisor Lufthansa City Centre (LCC), represented locally by Jetwing, to promote Sri Lanka as a ‘Destination of the Year” to its network of 650 travel agencies as well as, later on, custoers in 85 countries, revealed LCC Managing Director Klaus Henschel.
Klaus Henschel
Speaking to the Business Times during a 2-day visit to Sri Lanka last week, Mr. Henschel also noted that this promotion, held only three times before, was most recently responsible for a significant uptick in inbound travellers to Tobago, a small island destination often overlooked when tours were planned.
He also stated that Sri Lanka had a lot of potential for individualised and luxury tours, adding that this country was once again “on its way” to reclaiming its previous status as a main tourist getaway for Germans. According to Mr. Henschel, the EURO 5.5 billion-revenue LCC network, which still maintains the rights to use the Lufthansa brand name, despite the airline having sold its stake 15 years ago, is a “pure” franchisor and, unlike competitors such as American Express, does not own a stake in any of the travel agencies to which it licenses. Further, it is also unique because it is one of the few international travel agency networks that handles both the corporate and leisure sectors, while most focus only on corporate.
Commenting on the impact of booking sites on his sector, he noted that new online booking options were directly, negatively effecting package tours such as those provided by TMI and Kuoni. However, he signalled that one cannot find a truly unqiue travel experience via the Internet without wasting a lot of time searching, so LCC’s leisure business was not similarly threatened.
Mr. Henschel also indicated that true innovation in leisure travel only came from people meeting each other, making connections, since it was a people business, with LCC’s key strengths being its network and its networking.