Sri Lanka urgently needs to promote destination, says Nilmin
View(s):
Nilmin Nanayakkara
A Sri Lanka tourism industry stalwart has insisted that marketing the destination is vital at a time when Sri Lanka’s competitors were investing billions to generate increased tourist traffic.
“This is the time the industry should make large investments on TV advertising, media campaigns and look at all possible and probable avenues to reach the consumer as our competitors such as India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand are making large investments on consumer promotions which certainly would result in Sri Lanka’s opportunities getting drowned,” Nkar Travels and Tours Managing Director Nilmin Nanayakkara told the Business Times.
He noted that Sri Lanka was currently experiencing an average growth from Europe and with limited promotion work in these markets means it was making only a “small contribution to the growth.”
The Chinese market has been growing by 26 per cent, he said adding that Sri Lanka was witnessing increased arrivals from markets like the US and Canada that were making progress with 14.9 per cent and 16.9 per cent, respectively.
Mr. Nanayakkara pointed out that Japan was notably slipping out and Russia was on a negative growth but traditional markets like Scandinavia, Netherlands, India, UK, Germany and France were making progress without an effort.
Hinting on the lack of promotions, he noted “Just imagine if we ramp up consumer promotions of the product in all these destinations, the results we could reach from these countries whilst increasing the spending of per tourist per day would be tremendous.”
Mr. Nanayakkara pointed out that Sri Lanka needs to invest in short haul destinations as the country has over an average of 15-20 flights from markets like Malaysia, India, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia.
This is bound to bring in traffic to the country “even in the low yield months such as May, June, July, September, October and November. Further if there is an increase in the low yield months, obviously the hoteliers would reconsider the high pricing structure in the winter and if this happens and the pricing can be a little more competitive in the peak I am very confident cancellation of large Chinese groups will not happen like it has happened this year.”
In fact, pricing is also a key factor as hoteliers were today seen as “not as attractive in the winter” since most of the hotels run at a loss in the beginning of the financial year i.e. April up until October. Thereafter the hotels would strive to recover during the balance part of the financial year and go for a reasonable profit margin, he explained.
He observed that Sri Lanka does not need to base its model on “Singapore, Malaysia or Dubai as our attractions are different. What we offer cannot be developed or built up. Our value is heritage and authenticity as well as the scenic beauty, wild life and being an island nation with beautiful beaches”.